My husband and I get tickets to several shows each year and enjoy UMS events. I, in particular, enjoy world music and enjoy other cultures and languages and have as my close and personal friends people of many nationalities.

I have been disturbed, however, by some world music concerts during the past few years. On several occasions, a choice has been made for the performers to not speak any word of English and to not offer any translation. These performers often have a wide base of followers who fill the auditorium. We who are not of that culture do not understand the conversation and sit outside of the conversation. Not only does this diminish our experience as an audience but I find it quite disrespectful towards the culture and country that they are visiting as guest performers.

As an opposite example, I attended the AnDa Union recently and they were open, friendly, and engaging……inclusive towards their American audience and host. And it was wonderful hearing the traditional throat singing and music.

I am making the suggestion that an interpreter be available to translate the thoughts shared by the performers……..if the performer does not want to speak English him/herself. I am thinking of two performers in particular, each shared one sentence in fluent English during their concert and spoke in length throughout the remainder of the concert in their own language exclusively and exclusively to the members of their own culture in the audience. This is disturbing.

Also: it seems that in the world music genre, there has been a move toward bringing in pop artists who have a large following in their own culture but who are not presenting the ancient/traditional sounds of their historical music. If this is the continuing trend, I will unfortunately elect to not attend this category of performances in the future.

I will continue to attend and enjoy UMS events in other categories.