HELEN PEACOCKE highlights a new season of the Big Village concert series

The world is really just one big village, as musician and music promoter Matt Sage reminds us. His Big Village series has arranged for a fascinating mix of musicians from all over the world to appear in towns and villages across Oxfordshire through the autumn and winter.

Matt, from Oxford, has brought together a remarkable line up of musicians, including Black Umfolosi and Chris Wood.

"I am delighted with this present series as it represents truly world-class quality across the board," said Matt. "There is really nothing in this programme that I am not personally really excited about seeing and this series is the culmination of a lot of hard work of which I am justifiably proud."

Some of you will may well have already seen Zimbabwe a cappela group Amanguni and Senegalese kora player Kadialy Kouyate kick off the season earlier this month. The series continues next week when two leading exponents of Indian music take to the stage.

Sitar player Priyanath Chattopadhyay started training when aged only four and has been performing all over the world since he was 11. He is a visiting professor at Oxford University.

For a concert on November 3 in West Hendred village hall he will be joined by tabla player Dr Sanjib Bhakta and, prior to the concert, there will be a short lecture on Indian music.

Tickes cost £10 and are available from 01235 833373 or from Tickets Oxford on 01865 305305.

The following night in Oxford, Kala Ramnath, an outstanding violinist in the Hindustani classical tradition, is in concert.

Ramnath, whose imagination and flair makes the violin sing and dance with ease, will be accompanied by Pandit Abhijit Banerjee on tabla for an evening of masterful dialogue between the two instruments.

They can be seen at The North Wall, St Edward's School, Summertown. Tickets are £12 from 01865 319357.

Traditional music nearer to home can be heard at the Holywell Music Room on November 29 when award-winning British folk singer Chris Wood is in concert.

Chris has been performing for almost two decades as a composer and versatile musician who is at home with both violin and guitar. He is also known for his work as part of Wood, Wilson and Carthy and the English Acoustic Collective. But 2006 has really been his year, co-writing the best original song in this year's BBC Folk Awards - One in a Million - and being nominated for Best Folk Singer and Best Album awards.

Tickets for the concert, which starts at 8pm, are available from Tickets Oxford on 01865 305305. There is also a pre-concert discussion with Chris on being an independent musician and on setting up your own record label.

One of the new generation of African musicians, Inemo Samiama, from Nigeria, aims to fill The Zodiac in Cowley Road. Inemo, who emerged in his early twenties in Paris playing alongside Afrobeat legends like Tony Allen, drummer with Fela Kuti, has a new album out, Afro Funky Beats.

His concert takes place on Saturday, December 16, after a pre-concert workshop for percussionists at 6pm. Tickets, which cost £10, are available from the club on 01865 420042.

The diverse origins of The Voyagers, who will also be performing at the Zodiac in the New Year, is what makes their music so remarkable. Their output is a meeting of Jewish, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean traditions, with influences of Sephardic and Klezmer styles, and even a dash of jazz thrown in. Despite the mix, the group is known for its striking sense of harmony.

They will also be presenting a pre-concert discussion, this time on Jewish music.

Mor Karbasi, an Israeli who is also part Moroccan and part Iranian, has chosen for her January concert at The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay, a performance of Ladino music, a blend of Spanish classical songs, gypsy music and the desert sounds of the Arabic Moors. Ladino is an archaic form of Spanish with structures and vocabulary that can be traced back to the 15th century.

Abdullah Chhadeh, a Syrian refugee who was born in the Golan Heights, is the acknowledged master of the qanun, a Middle Eastern 72-stringed zither that dates back to the 10th century.

To enhance the tonal range of the zither, Abdullah has redesigned it by adding an octave, which enables him to challenge the qanun's traditional repertoire. His work includes adaptations from the Syrian, Turkish, Azerbaijani and Andalusian traditions. He is known to perform some rather surprising interpretations of well-known Western classical composers, too.

He will be making his contribution to the Big Village series at The Theatre, Chipping Norton, in February.

A collective of veteran master musicians, singers fishermen and Sufi philosophers who call themselves El Tanbura are coming to the Zodiac in the same month.

Their music is driven by the seductive call of the Simsimiyya - an ancient lyre dating back to the Pharaohs. They formed their group in 1989 from a small nucleus of veterans whose performances proved so infectious others soon joined. The band grew to include not only folk musicians and percussionists but dancers and singers too, drawn from local fishermen, market traders and builders from their home in Port Said.

The internationally acclaimed dance group Black Umfolosi conclude the series when they come to the Zodiac on March 25. This is the day that marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the transatlantic Slave Trade and so their concert is one of several events marking the event.

Black Umfolosi have won over thousands of fans in music festivals across Europe and this year celebrate their 25th anniversary. The group's name is derived from the Umfolosi river in South Africa. They added 'Black' to emphasise their identity as they see their music as a way of renewing their own culture and introducing it abroad.

While their act includes many traditional dances, it also includes the southern African miners' gumboot dance, an energetic and highly amusing routine.

Tickets for all concerts are also available from the website www.bigvillage.org