THURSDAY

Zimbabwean Stella Chiweshe’s thumb-piano drones, Afro-Peruvian Susana Baca’s ballads, and Mexican-American Tish Hinojosa’s Tex-Mex folk may have different roots, but they share contemporary twists. On her best-of compilation The Healing Tree, Stella Chiweshe’s rough-voiced chanting is less prominent than the sounds of her mbira, a wooden hand-piano. Taught how to play by her uncle after other male musicians refused, Chiweshe has since been recognized as one of her country’s expert players of both minimalist compositions and upbeat Afro-pop. Susana Baca’s self-titled ’97 debut was a critical fave, proving that Peruvian music encompasses more than Andean pan-flute instrumentals. A descendent of Peru’s comparatively small slave population, Baca is a singing ethnomusicologist whose slow-dance poems on culture use elements of melancholic Portuguese fado, jazzy Brazilian samba, and bouncy Cuban rhumba. Hinojosa’s ’96 effort, Dreaming From the Labyrinth, adds a lush, dreamy feel to her bilingual folk rock. Each of the “Global Divas” will play a set, and then they will come together for encores at 8 p.m. Thursday, March 26, at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, 730 21st St. NW. $22-35. (202) 994-6800. (Steve Kiviat)