Dan Rosenberg - Dan Rosenberg: Publicist, Radio Producer & More

Dan Rosenberg: Publicist, Radio Producer & More

For more than two decades, I have worked in the arts, as a journalist, publicist/director of media relations, and music producer.

Currently, I am working as a publicist and director of media relations for numerous arts and educational projects, including University of Toronto professor Anna Shternshis' work, Yiddish Glory, which has been the subject of over 350 media features in over 50 countries around the world. Other recent publicity projects including the critically-acclaimed play, The Dybbuk (named as the "best show to see in Toronto in September 2018 by Toronto Life). I've also done PR work on scores of arts proejcts, that have resulted in press coverage in The New York Times, NPR, the BBC and even People Magazine, many of which are listed here and also here.

ABOUT ME:

People often ask me, "How did you become interested in world music?" I think that they'd like to hear something like my parents met in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea. In reality, I grew up in Pittsburgh, listening to Peter Gabriel and U2 albums, like many American high schoolers. In 1985, I moved to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan where I studied molecular biology and political science. After graduation, I had an incredible passion for travel, so I used virtually every spare moment voyaging to far off places, including Bamako, Mali, Salvador de Bahia Brazil, and Skopje, Macedonia in search of seeing the world's greatest music and dance live in its own environment. At the end of each trip, I ended up lugging home incredibly heavy suitacases filled with impossible to find albums. I began the radio show, "Cafe International" more as a hobby, a way to share my collection of far flung recordings with the Ann Arbor community. At the time, my "day job" was as product manager for a biotech software company.

After a significant health scare, I re-evaluated my career choice. The experience convinced me to take a pay cut to pursue my true love, music.

The radio show, Cafe International quickly became much more than a hobby. Each week, it would feature interviews with musicians, scholars, journalists and celebrities who were interested in the world's folk music. Some of the guests on the program included Carlinhos Brown (Brazil), Khaled (Algeria), Babatunde Olatunji (Nigeria), Ali Farka Toure (Mali), Baaba Maal (Senegal), Angelique Kidjo (Benin), Susana Baca (Peru), Loyko (Russia), The Klezmatics (USA), Vocal Sampling (Cuba), Elizabeth McAlister (Scholar of Haitian Music), Ravi Shankar (India), Capercaillie (Scotland), Muzsikas (Hungary), Andy Palacio (Belize), Haris Alexiou (Greece), Marisa Monte (Brazil), and even Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy.

PHOTO: Interviewing Ali Farka Toure, at his studio in Mali (1997)

In 1997, I began producing reports about music and culture from just about every corner of the world. I have produced episodes of for the nationally synidacted radio program Afropop Worldwide from Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Guatemala and Belize. I also produced numerous reports for the CBC's radio program, Global Village, NPR's Artbeat, as well as a host of publications include fRoots, Outpost, Sing Out!, The Detroit Metro Times, MTV's SonicNet, Tower-Pulse, and the Rough Guides.

One thing that often frustrated me though, was that I was heading to the far corners of the earth, and reporting about music that very few readers and listeners had access to. After each radio show, I'd get lots of calls and emails asking, "How do I get a recording of that song you played on the show?" I would have to explain that ordering a copy through the mail from the artist who lived in a village 8000 miles away wasn't very realistic. So, I approached a number of record labels about releasing CDs from artists I met on my travels (a list of most of these is at the bottom of this page, and more details can be found on the page, "Recordings and Publications").

Partial list of CDs that I have produced/compiled and others that I have written liner notes for:

YIDDISH GLORY: THE LOST SONGS OF WORLD WAR II (Six Degrees Records)

THE HIDDEN GATE: JEWISH MUSIC AROUND THE WORLD (2 CD Set, Rounder Records)

MUSICA NEGRA IN THE AMERICAS: A 2CD anthology of African music in the Americas (Network Medien, Germany)

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO VOODOO (2 CD Set) (World Music Network)

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO ARABIC REVOLUTIONARY MUSIC (2 CD Set) (World Music Network)

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO ETHIOPIAN JAZZ (World Music Network)

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO MUSIC WITHOUT FRONTIERS (2 CD Set) (World Music Network)

THE ROUGH GUIDE: CARIBBEAN CAFE (2 CD Set) (World Music Network)

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO CELTIC WOMEN (2 CD Set) (World Music Network)

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO THE MUSIC OF SENEGAL (2 CD Set) (World Music Network)

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO KLEZMER (2 CD Set) (World Music Network)