workshop/teaching
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| world repertory ensemble |
kekeli west african drum ensemble |
As a musician, I know that the best learning comes from doing. In
each of my workshops around the world or classes in the Music Department,
College of Visual and Performing Arts,
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
students clap, sing, dance, or drum as an essential part of our discussion,
reading, listening, and viewing. It is not necessary to master each activity,
but to experience the sound, movement, and group interaction intensively. When
possible, artists from each style or culture area studied perform for and with
the class to bring the roots of the sound and movement home.
My workshops, both individual and with master artists, include: West
African drumming, its connection to African American and other contemporary
music, innovations in jazz performance, historical jazz drumset styles, rhythms
from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East adapted to drumset,
new time and rhythmic concepts for drumset and jazz ensemble, African American
expressions of culture, aesthetics, music, society, and politics, and music as
philosophy.
On a graduate or undergraduate level, our classes and workshops in
African American music live out what we discuss: we clap, sing, and dance camp
meeting ring shouts or Georgia Sea Islands pattin'
Juba, construct a one-string diddly-bow, sing the blues, compose a rap
and play/dance hip-hop beats, dance to reggae and scat sing in the bebop jazz
style: all as part of understanding the resilience and power of African American
traditions.
In our world music and ethnomusicology workshops and
classes, we perform Native American
Iroquois, Navajo, Lakota, and Inuit rhythms, songs, and dances;
Japanese taiko rhythms, Chinese Beijing and Cantonese opera patterns;
Philippine kulintang gong and drum ensemble pieces;
Turkish usul rhythmic cycles on the bendir frame drum; South
Indian karnatak solkattu rhythmic vocables; Korean nong ak
drum and gong ensemble patterns; Javanese gamelan compositions; Gaelic
bodhran rhythms; European chamber and symphonic percussion pieces,
Dominican merengue, Brazilian samba; Cuban guaguanco; American
rudimental drumming; and West African songs, dances, and drum, bell, and rattle
repertoire.
I also teach piano and jazz improvisation, focusing on the African
American tradition and its innovators, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington,
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, and Ornette
Coleman.
The small and large jazz ensembles I work with play
repertoire from the early 1920s through the present. We learn from the African
American tradition and use its heritage of spontaneous aural interaction as a
way to develop pieces and perform in the style of Duke Ellington, Charles
Mingus, and Sun Ra. We deal with the cultural and social meaning of pieces in
each era as a way to play diverse historical styles with integrity. Our ensembles at UMass Dartmouth also play original and historic compositions in
the African American tradition with a strong emphasis on influences from Asian,
African, and American cultures.
Our Kekeli West African
drum and dance ensemble performs the music and dance of the Eve, Fon, Ashanti,
Ga, Dagomba, Dagarti, and other cultural groups. We are led in public concerts
and workshops by master drummers such as Abraham Kobena Adzenyah, C.K.
Ladzekpo, and Martin Kwaakye Obeng, and dancers Kwabena Boateng and Helen Mensah.
In each area of teaching I am committed to understanding the
beliefs, lifeways, and histories of peoples as an essential part of their music
making. Charlie Parker's words, 'If you don't live it, it won't come out of your
horn.' are true. Even in the classroom, we live the music as much as possible to
feel it and find what it means to each of us.
For scheduling workshops, residencies, lectures, and performances,
contact me at the royal hartigan
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