On a given week at The Cedar, you might hear Malian desert blues, Swedish folk fiddles, Somali oud masters and a Minneapolis indie band — sometimes on the same bill. This nonprofit listening room in the West Bank’s Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has presented global music since 1989, earning a reputation as one of America’s essential world-music stages.
The hall — a converted 1948 movie theater — holds 450 people in democratic comfort: seated shows, standing dance parties, all-ages matinees. Its Midnimo program, built with the East African community next door and Augsburg University, brings Somali artists from around the world to the neighborhood that calls them family.
The Cedar’s motto could be Minneapolis’s: the whole world is welcome, and it sounds wonderful.
