From Sept. 4 through Sept. 21 the weeks are packed with a spate of theater, dance, and music featuring artists from around the world. And since the SFIAF absorbed the 4-year-old San Francisco World Music Festival, some of the coolest offerings are aural. Chief among them is a sort of United Nations of orchestra by Lebanese composer Marcel Khalifé, with vocals from Lebanese soloist Oumayma El Khalil and women's Eastern Europe ensemble Kitka and instrumentation from the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra and Chinese musicians. Other highlights include the two-part "Ancestors of Siberia," which features throat singers, folk dancers and musicians, and shaman spiritual elders from Central Asia, and joyous Afro-Cuban jazz from the Omar Sosa Quintet. Those who are customarily exposed to world music only through flavor-of-the-month radio programming would do well to listen up.
