Doctor Matthew Dacso will give a talk entitled, “The African Jazz Idiom in Sickness and in Health” on Wednesday, July 29, at 7:30pm at the Adas Yoshuron Synagogue, 50 Willow Street in Rockland.  This event is free and open to all.

Dacso has been enamored with the African idiom for many years beginning with an early appreciation of Abdullah Ibrahim, a noted South African composer, musician, and freedom fighter in the struggle against apartheid.  While in Botswana, Dacso engaged the music community, performed, and ultimately formed the Trans-Kalahari Quintet (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trans-Kalahari-Quintet/180009978720008). TKQ has released two CDs and has toured Africa. Dacso has toured Sweden, Germany, and southern Africa with Botswana musicians and is an integral part of that country’s music scene. In his presentation, Dacso will discuss the intimate relationship between music and medicine. He will demonstrate African jazz idioms and note how these inform communication about culture, health, and disease.  

Matthew Dacso, MD, MSc is Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of Global Health at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. In addition to his medical degree from University of Texas he is a graduate of McGill University music school with concentration in jazz saxophone and University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. Following his medical residency at Brown University, he and his wife Premal Patel, MD lived in Botswana for two years where she cared for adults with HIV and he worked with rural clinics in establishing standards for the treatment of chronic diseases.

Presented by the Adas Yoshuron Synagogue, this event is offered as a free community event in in anticipation of the 29th Annual Camden Conference: The New Africa, February 19-21, 2016. 

The mission of the Camden Conference is to foster informed discourse on world issues. For more information, visit www.camdenconference.org, email info@camdenconference.org, or call 207-236-1034.