Garden Variety

Summer nights with the World Music Festival

by A.D. Amorosi

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION) More Pictures Below

When Gerald L. Carter's Sleeping Giant Art Gallery and Joe Tiberino's Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum collaborate for their first-ever World Music Festival, its earthly sounds will be bound only by a dream and a wish. That'd be a seriously corny sentiment if it weren't for real.

Every Thursday throughout the summer, audiences will experience the worldly tones of Brazil (from jazzy ensemble Siora), India (courtesy of Shafaatullah Khan) and some Balkan dance music (the West Philadelphia Orchestra, naturally) — all in the Tiberino Museum's lush garden area. They'll also get a chance to hear something curated out of love and curiosity rather than simply commerce.

"I genuinely believe that this festival has the potential to bring many people together who would, under normal circumstances, never meet," says Carter. He's run Sleeping Giant out of his home in Powelton Village (419 N. 33rd St.) for more than 12 years, and has an idea of what it means to bring people from diverse backgrounds together in the name of art — just like Joe Tiberino has since opening the Ellen. "My hope is that some real connections can be formed at these shows in order to help us understand each other," says Carter, "and take some of the fear and animosity out of the equation by which we usually — consciously or unconsciously — judge each other."

Plus, Carter loves world music and doesn't mind taking a few chances. He was a founding member of the Brandywine Graphic Workshop, which has provided arts education to minorities in Philadelphia since 1972. After leaving the workshop, Carter built, booked, co-owned and managed Chameleon's Garden restaurant and jazz performance club in Mantua. The venue hosted many musicians — including Dexter Gordon, Gil Scott Heron, the Heath Brothers, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown and Noel Pointer — and comedians such as Dick Gregory.

The Chameleon was fun, but expensive. "I loved the work and the music but it became financially unviable," says Carter, who had to close the club in 1989 after four years of serving the jazz community. "I was broke, depressed and promised myself, never again. So how did I get here? I am a Pisces, and a dreamer by nature."

Then again, it doesn't hurt when someone else shares your dreams and wishes. When he heard that Tiberino was looking to curate music at his family's museum during the summer, the plans got started. Then lifelong friend Barbara Walker — a local jazz singer and a regular Chameleon performer — called from out of the blue. "She revealed that she had dreamed about me, and had a strong feeling that we were destined to work together again soon," says Carter. Now, she's the event's weekly host.

And here we are. If "here" and "we are" means sitting in the middle of the Tiberino family's trees, mosaics, sculptures and murals while listening to the transformational and healing music of Stephen Wise-Katriel, the Jewish and Arabian sounds of Atzuit, a diva jazz show featuring the dreamy Ms. Walker and the July 10 series debut with Animus (pictured) and their brand of buoyant world fusion, let's not wake up too soon.

Animus Animus The Peace Train CLICK IMAGES FOR LARGER VERSIONS

Stephen Wise-Katriel Shafaatullah Khan

Listen up at citypaper.net/agenda.

World Music Festival Featuring Animus, Thu., July 10, 7 p.m., $10, Ellen Powell Tiberino Memorial Museum, 3819 Hamilton St., 215-386-3784, tiberinomuseum.com