Fourteen talented female vocalists take to stage for the third year of Diaspora Art Connection’s “Let Her Sing®: A Celebration of Female Voices” in San Francisco on Saturday, September 21. The artists will come together in the prestigious Blue Shield of California Theater at the YBCA for a unique showcase of different styles and stories. The night’s performances will be dedicated to the support of the female voice, banned and suppressed in parts of the world today. Each artist will perform a short set, as they unite in an effort to raise awareness and support female vocalists worldwide.
Let Her Sing is the flagship event for Diaspora Arts Connection, a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of artists in diaspora and building bridges between artists and audiences in the SF Bay Area.
“Let Her Sing is our year-long labor of love and our homage to the long and perilous efforts of women to sing and their right to self-expression in several parts of the world, whether they are banned from singing by law or pressured into silence through social norms,” said Nazy Kaviani, DAC founder and executive director. “World over, women’s voices have provided the first introduction of babies and children to music through lullabies. As a world heritage, a vast collection of folk songs in various cultures are songs performed by women during agricultural activities, traditional ceremonies, and production of handicrafts such as carpet weaving. For a woman to sing, therefore, is one of the simplest and most natural ways of musical expression. To keep women from singing is an affront to humanity,” she added.
“In no other time in contemporary history have arts and music had a more important mission–to create bridges of inclusion, diversity, and harmony. The artists who present their voices at Let Her Sing 2019 will walk in the forefront of building those bridges,” says Kaviani.
This year’s rendition of LHS will feature artists from a wide array of musical disciplines and regions, including Kurdistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. By showcasing artists active in the field of pop, folk, traditional, and world music, LHS 2019 is set to be an unforgettable evening of musical performances. Performers this year include award-winning singer Layla Kardan, Afghan songstress Elaha Soroor, and the multi-talented Golnar Shahyar. The common thread between LHS artists is their belief in the universal right for women to express themselves, musically or otherwise.
The night will also include performances by Paris-based Ariana Vafadari, London-based Azadeh, Bay Area-based Iranian Women Folk Singers (Azadeh Farpour, Hanna Davarmanesh, Mima Goodarz, and Sanaz Mardkar), Bay Area-based Işık Berfin and Ozden Oztoprak, Texas-based Mehrnoosh, Paris-based Niaz Nawab, and Los Angeles-based Shahrzad Sepanlou.
DAC is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to fostering deeper understanding and connections among diverse cultural and ethnic groups in the Bay Area, through cultural and artistic events. DAC has helped introduce hundreds of singers, dancers, film and theater directors, and authors to California audiences.
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