Nobuko Miyamoto marks the return of Getty and Smithsonian’s ‘Sounds of L.A.’

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Nobuko Miyamoto (Photo by Michael Becker)

L.A. singer-songwriter, community- and theater-maker Nobuko Miyamoto — who now also counts author among her accomplishments with the publication of her autobiography, “Not Yo’ Butterfly,” via UC Press last year — will reboot the Getty’s partnership with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival for the free “Sounds of L.A.” series this spring.

The series starts Feb. 19 and 20 with a performance of Miyamoto’s album “120,000 Stories” (released last year via the Smithsonian Folkways imprint) on the weekend of the 44th annual Day of Remembrance, in partnership with the Japanese American National Museum. After awareness efforts begun in 1969, Day of Remembrance (traditionally held Feb. 19 to commemorate the day President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942) was established to seek redress for the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans from the Pacific Coast states. “120,000 Stories” producers Quetzal Flores and Derek Nakamoto will join the 82-year-old Miyamoto with a rockin’ band.

On March 12-13, for the second of three installments of “Sounds of L.A.,” tabla prodigy Salar Nader leads a masterful ensemble of musicians — including Homayoun Sakhi on rhubâb, Chetram Sahni on dhol and vocalists Hangama Zohra and Shamali Afghan — in an Afghani celebration of the celestial skies, “Nezam-e-Shams,” for the West Asian new year, “Nawrooz.” The performance will be a prayer for peace and love through the beauty and power of song.

On April 9-10, it’s Kumu of Hula Kealiʻi Ceballos leading “AUKAHI (Flowing Harmony),” a celebration of Hawaiian culture through traditional and contemporary hula song and dance with Hālau Hula Kealiʻi o Nālani, with Grammy-winning ukulele maestro Daniel Ho, accompanied by singer-cellist Danna Xue and drummer Randy Drake.

Sounds of L.A. Schedule

Feb. 19, Nobuko Miyamoto, 7 p.m.
Feb. 20, Nobuko Miyamoto, 4 p.m.
March 12, Salar Nader, 7 p.m.
March 13, Salar Nader, 4 p.m.
April 9, Hālau Hula Kealiʻi o Nālani & Daniel Ho, 7 p.m.
April 10, Hālau Hula Kealiʻi o Nālani & Daniel Ho, 4 p.m.

Tickets are available at Getty.edu and the programs will also be streamed on the museum’s YouTube (Nobuko Miyamoto’s program will be livestreamed only here).

||| Previously: Sounds of L.A. 2020