The Metro: Celebrated Detroit artists to fuse Arab, Armenian sounds at Concert Of Colors

, , , July 17, 2025

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Sounds from across the globe are coming to Detroit this weekend for the 34th annual Concert of Colors music festival. The free festival, taking place now through Sunday, July 20, has continued to grow and gain momentum year after year. 

Among this year’s performers will be award-winning Detroit solo artists Victor Ghannam and Sean Blackman, who are collaborating together for a fusion of Arab, Armenian, Eastern jazz, and Detroit music.

They’ll be performing at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Detroit Historical Museum alongside Detroit jazz saxophonist David McMurray. Ghannam and Blackman joined The Metro ahead of their performance to share more about the heritage of the songs and how they were made. 

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

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Authors

  • Cary Junior II
    Cary Junior II is an audio journalist and producer for The Metro on 101.9 WDET. Cary has worked as a producer or host on a number of projects. His work includes short and longform audio, documentary series and daily radio. In his five year career in journalism he has worked for Crooked Media, the Detroit Free Press, and now WDET - Detroit's NPR station.

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  • Lauren Myers

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  • David Leins is the senior producer of WDET’s daily news and culture program, The Metro. He has produced several award-winning podcasts and multimedia series at WDET including Tracked and Traced, Science of Grief and COVID Diaries, which earned a National Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Innovation. He previously led WDET’s StoryMakers program. David has an M.A. in Media Arts and Studies from Wayne State University, and a B.A. in anthropology from Grand Valley State University with a minor in Arabic. David teaches podcasting at Wayne State University and is an alumnus of the Transom Audio Storytelling Workshop.

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  • The Metro

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