Baltimore Rhythm Festival is not yet ready to handle payments.

2019 BALTIMORE RHYTHM FESTIVAL

by Baltimore Rhythm Festival

The Baltimore Rhythm Festival is an entirely free event and is made possible by contributors like you. This unique festival brings people together through the gift of rhythm. Join us Sept. 14!

Your Contribution helps make this event possible! 

credit: Larry Cohen. Drum Circle scene The 2019 Baltimore Rhythm Festival – Come for the Drums!

September 14, 2019 Noon-7PM

Baltimore City Public Charter Montessori School 1600 and 1634 Guilford Ave. Baltimore Md. 21202 in the Station North Arts District.

The 2019 Baltimore Rhythm Festival brings people together for a day of celebration, connection, and growth around our common foundation, the gift of rhythm. This year, we feature spiritual upliftment, danceable grooves, musical artistry, and traditional and new community vibes.  We dedicate this year’s festival to our dear brother Kwame Ansah-Brew, a longtime friend of the festival who passed away unexpectedly earlier this year. Kwame dedicated his life to spreading joy and sharing the African music and culture he loved and we are proud to honor his legacy.

The festival begins at noon with a blessing and prayer led by Maria Broom and continues all afternoon with two stages, workshops, children’s activities, open mic, vendors, and the festival drum jams that are like no other.

Our Yard Stage features

  • Plena de La R – Puerto Rican Plena
  • Sahffi Lynne and Dan La Porta – Healing Music from the Heart
  • Dong Xi: Tom Teasley and Chao Tian –  World Percussion and Hammer Dulcimer
  • Alif Laila with Debu Nayak – Indian Sitar and Tabla
  • FICA Capoeira Angola  –  Brazilian Dance/Music/Martial art

Our Street Stage features

  • 2nd Missionary Baptist Church Gospel Choir -  Baltimore Gospel
  • Jahidi Brownfish – Roots, Reggae and Soul
  • J Pope and the HearNow – Soul, Hiphop, amd Funk
  • Funsho – R&B
  • Bele Bele Rhythm Collective – Women’s Djembe Orchestra
  • A Tribute to Kwame Ansah-Brew – Drumming and Dance from Ghana

Workshop Teachers  include Moziah Saleem , Baile, Dr. Yew, David Williams, Jennifer Laemmer,  Circle Singing, and Tom Teasley. Our workshops welcome beginners and those with more experience and are hands on and lots of fun.  Bring your drum if you have one, we have a Drumcheck space for our guests!  

Our children’s area has craft activities and opportunities to play music. Our open mic has room for poets, rappers, storytellers, and performers of all kinds to share their creativity in an informal and welcoming space.  

Vendors will offer delicious soul food and vegetarian island inspired cuisine. Unique crafts, art, clothing, jewelry, and drums and other musical instruments will be available.  

What makes the Rhythm Festival unique is the welcoming space it provides for drum jams. We welcome you to bring your instrument or buy or borrow one, and be part of the all-day jamming.  We are thrilled that Baltimore’s half century old community drumming tradition The Park Vibe will lead the jam in the late afternoon.

Also unique is the festival’s Beatcoin festival currency. We share this currency as a gift to those who come to the festival to give to those whose performance or presence inspired them. 

All performances and workshops are free and open to the public. The festival is a short block from the Baltimore Collegetown Shuttle Red and Blue Routes, and the Penn Station transportation hub. Parking is plentiful around nearby Penn Station.

The Baltimore Rhythm Festival produces, presents, and supports the collective joy of rhythm based arts through programs and services centered on our annual festival. We are committed to diversity, inclusion, outreach, and respect. We invite a culture of artistic growth, participation, education, and connection for our community and its members, helping our city sustain individual and collective well-being.

The Baltimore Rhythm Festival is a not for profit organization fiscally sponsored by Strong City Baltimore. Beginning in 1995, The Baltimore International Rhythm and Drumming Society (BIRDS) hosted an annual Rhythm Festival. It was an event that brought communities together to recognize and celebrate the power of rhythm to connect. Since 2014, the Baltimore Rhythm Festival revives, renews and reinvents the spirit of the BIRDS festivals.

The Baltimore Rhythm Festival is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council, msac.org. and by the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, creator of the Baker Artist Portfolios, www.BakerArtist.org.

 

Baltimore Rhythm Festival c/o Strong City Baltimore 3503 N. Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21218

www.baltimorerhythmfestival.org

E-Mail: [email protected]

Follow us on:

Facebook.com/BmoreRhythmFest

Twitter.com/BmoreRhythmFest

instagram.com/BmoreRhythmFest