Robert Browning's Retirement from the World Music Institute

Catching up on some reading, I've just discovered that Robert Browning is retiring as the head of New York's World Music Institute.

The WMI-sponsored concerts that I attended over the years actually tended to feature artists from the United States -- I remember a great old-time stringband show with the Whitetop Mountain Band and a show with Cajun supergroup Beausoleil -- but I nonetheless always appreciated the diverse series that WMI sponsored.

I also was interested to learn about Browning's role in founding the Alternative Museum:

[Browning] came to New York in 1974, and the next year helped found the Alternative Center for International Arts (later the Alternative Museum), where he began putting on concerts by artists from far-flung places. The World Music Institute — which Mr. Browning operates with his wife, Helene, the organization’s indomitable publicist — has presented more than 1,500 concerts on stages throughout the city and has been behind landmark events like the first American tour by the Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.