The award-winning Ontario musician, composer, music therapist and educator will be an artist-in-residence at the 11th Cordas World Music Festival, bringing the sounds of guitar and the Arabic oud to Pico Island.
Strings have always been travelers. They cross languages, borders and musical traditions, carrying with them the memory of the places where they have been played. From October 1 to 5, the 11th Cordas World Music Festival will once again transform Madalena, Pico, into one of those meeting places, with performances in schools, at the Pico Wine Museum, Cella Bar and, at the center of the program, the Madalena Auditorium and Library.
Among this year’s international guests is Canadian musician Aaron Lightstone, whose participation is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts. Originally from Ontario, Lightstone moves between musical worlds, performing on guitar while also distinguishing himself on the oud, the ancient Middle Eastern lute whose musical ancestry stretches across centuries and cultures.
Lightstone’s career itself reflects the broad philosophy of Cordas. He is an award-winning musician and composer as well as a music therapist and educator, and serves as musical director of an ensemble involving people with physical disabilities. He is also a co-founder of the Canadian Musician Royalty Collection Initiative (CMRCI), created to help Canadian musicians better understand their copyright and royalty rights. With his band JAFFA ROAD, he has twice been nominated for a JUNO Award in the World Music Album of the Year category, as well as receiving nominations from the Canadian Folk Music Awards and Folk Music Ontario.
His presence on Pico will extend beyond a single concert. Lightstone will participate in an artistic residency during the festival, allowing the encounter between musician and island to develop over several days. He takes the main stage at the Madalena Auditorium on Saturday, October 3, at 9 p.m., immediately following the solo debut of Pico musician Orlando Martins—a particularly fitting sequence in a festival built around encounters between musicians rooted in the islands and artists arriving from elsewhere.
That juxtaposition captures something essential about Festival Cordas. The event is not simply about stringed instruments as objects; it is about the extraordinary cultural journeys contained within them. A guitar from the Atlantic world and an oud shaped by Middle Eastern musical traditions may have different histories, tunings and vocabularies, yet both begin with the same elemental gesture: fingers touching strings and turning vibration into human expression.
Supported by the Municipality of Madalena, the INATEL Foundation and the Regional Directorate for Culture of the Government of the Azores, Festival Cordas continues to demonstrate how a small island can become an international musical crossroads.
On October 3, one of those roads will begin in Ontario, travel through the ancient voice of the oud, and arrive on Pico—where, for an evening, the Atlantic will have a new set of strings.
Based on a MiratecArts Press Release–Photo also from MiratecArts