30

MONDAY

When Leo Sarkisian took a job in 1950 as a recording engineer for Tempo Records in Hollywood, little did he know that 40-some years later he would become widely known internationally as a Voice of America radio host and an expert on non-Western music. Sarkisian, also a musician and cartographer, spent much of the ’50s working for Tempo in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana, and Guinea, taping performers wherever he could find them. In 1964, Edward R. Murrow recognized Sarkisian’s talents and encouraged him to produce a VOA program from Liberia. Since then, the now locally based host of VOA’s Music Time in Africa has been to every country on that continent. A collector of traditional and popular Middle-Eastern and African recordings, Sarkisian will talk about his career and the music he loves at 7 p.m. at the Library of Congress in the Madison Building’s West Dining Room, 101 Independence Ave. SE. Free. (202) 707-1848. (Steve Kiviat)