Youssou N’Dour 2005 U.S. Tour

Youssou N’Dour has announced a U.S. tour to promote his Egypt recording, according to Afropop.org:

Youssou N’Dour is about to embark [on] an historic tour performing his Grammy Award-winning Egypt project. Youssou N’Dour joins forces with Egyptian master-musician Fathy Salama for this sonic adventure, Egypt (2004, Nonesuch). Through the differing forms of expression from east and west of the Sahara, Youssou and Fathy explore the shared spiritual bonds that unite Muslims across the continent. The result is a soulful retracing of their common roots.

He’ll be at Carnegie Hall for a series of concerts. The main event is on October 26th (for more on the NYC festivites see Afropop’s site). He’ll also appear at UCLA’s Royce Hall on November 12th, and at UC Berkeley. Nonesuch lists some of these and other tour dates:

DATE CITY VENUE OTHER INFORMATION
10/23/05 NYC Zankel Hall
10/24/05 NYC Zankell Hall
10/25/05 NYC Zankel Hall
10/26/05 NYC Carnegie Hall
10/29/05 Miami, FL Gusman Center For The Performing Arts
10/30/05 Bethesda, MD The Music Center at Strathmore
11/1/05 Chapel Hill, NC Memorial Hall
11/03/05 Chicago, IL Chicago Symphony Orchestra
11/05/05 Ann Arbor, MI Hill Auditorium
11/06/05 Notre Dame, IN Leighton Concert Hall
11/09/05 Davis, CA Mondavi Center
11/11/05 Berkeley, CA Zellerbach Auditorium
11/12/05 Los Angeles, CA Royce Hall
11/13/05 Tucson, AZ Centennial Hall

It looks like Seattle will miss him this time (alas).

Egypt justifiably won last year’s Grammy for best world music recording. Given the sorry state of the world and especially our own country, we need a good, strong dose of Youssou’s courage, hope and optimism. If you haven’t yet heard him in concert, you simply must. He’s arguably the greatest African musician in the world.