TUFTS UNIVERSITY PRESENTS AFRICA FEST 2009 – A CELEBRATION IN HONOR OF ALHAJI ABUBAKARI LUNNA

AFRICA FEST 2009 - QUICK OVERVIEW
A Festival of African Music, Dance, and Arts:
Hosted by Kiniwe, the Tufts African Music and Dance Ensemble, directed by Professor David Locke

With special guests (Click to jump to information):
- The Agbekor Society (African folkloric group)
- Akpokli (West African folkloric group)
- The Berklee College of Music African Music
- Imaginary Homeland (African fusion group)
- Natraj (the world-jazz ensemble)
- An other former students of Alhaji Abubakari Lunna

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Click here for MS World Version of Press Release (shorter)

Schedule of Events:
Participatory and Interactive Workshops with Guests
- 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm, Jackson Dance Lab
Free. No tickets or reservations required.

African Bazaar, Poster Session, Merchants
- Throughout the afternoon and early evening in the Murnane Lobby of the Granoff Music Center. Free. No tickets required. Light African dinner will be served to guest artists and some meals will be available to the public for a small fee. Details to come.

Performance
- 8 pm to 10:30 pm. Featuring all of the above groups in different sets in tribute to Alhaji Abubakari Lunna. Tickets are $2-$7. Seating is general admission. Available by calling 617.627.3679.


SPECIAL EVENT BEING HELD IN CONJUNCTION WITH AFRICA FEST
Tufts Emerging Black Leaders Symposium
- Morning and Early Afternoon in the Distler Performance Hall, Granoff Music Center
- Highlight: Keynote address with noted rap artist and MC, Talib Kweli.
- For more information on the symposium, its schedule, and ticket information, visit: http://www.tuftsebls.org/site/symposium/

 

TUFTS UNIVERSITY HOSTS AFRICA FEST 2009
IN HONOR OF ALHAJI ABUBAKARI LUNNA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Monday, February 9, 2009

Media Contact:
Tara Espiritu, 617.627.3679, tara.espiritu@tufts.edu
Ryan Saunders, 617.627.2253, ryan.saunders@tufts.edu

On Saturday, March 7, Tufts University presents Africa Fest 2009, a daylong festival of African music, dance, and culture in the Granoff Music Center and Jackson Dance Lab on the Tufts Medford and Somerville campus. The festival, featuring workshops and performances by several collegiate and professional world music ensembles, is being held in celebration of the late Alhaji Abubakari Lunna (pictured left, click for higher res version) noted Ghanaian master drummer and frequent artist-in-residence at Tufts University. A full schedule of events for the day is above.

The highlight of the festival will be a grand evening performance celebrating Alhaji Abubakari Lunna’s far-reaching legacy in the greater music world. Groups scheduled to perform during the event include the acclaimed world-jazz ensemble Natraj, the New York based African fusion group Imaginary Homeland, the West African folkloric groups: Boston’s Agbekor Society and Canada’s Akpokli, the Berklee College of Music West African Drum and Dance Ensemble directed by Joe Galeota, and Kiniwe, the Tufts African Music and Dance Ensemble, directed by Professor David Locke. The performance will begin at 8 pm and take place in the Granoff Music Center’s Distler Performance Hall, Tufts University, 20 Talbot Avenue, Medford, Massachusetts. General admission tickets are required for the performance ($2-$7), and can be purchased by calling 617.627.3679.

In addition to the performance, Africa Fest 2009 will feature several other components.

From 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm, interactive and participatory workshops lead by the ensembles and artists performing on the evening event will be offered. The workshops are open to the public and are free. Tickets and reservations are not required to attend. Participation is optional (guests may just come to watch). The workshops will feature demonstrations in African drumming and African dance. In addition, there will also be a session in which the composers from the professional ensembles discuss how they create their music and the African influence that is reflected in it. The workshops will take place in the Jackson Dance Lab, Tufts University, 40 Talbot Avenue, Medford, Massachusetts (just next door to the Granoff Music Center).

During the afternoon and early evening, there will be an African Bazaar in the Granoff Music Center’s main lobby. The bazaar will include African craft vendors, poster sessions on African causes, a small African dinner (available for a small fee), and other interactive media presentations related to Africa. Entrance to the bazaar is free and open to the public.

Africa Fest 2009 is being held in conjunction with the annual Tufts Emerging Black Leaders Symposium. The symposium will take place in the Distler Performance Hall of the Granoff Music Center during the morning and early afternoon. Noted and critically acclaimed rap artist and MC Talib Kweli will offer a keynote speech during the symposium at noon. For information on the symposium schedule, Talib Kweli address, and ticket information, please visit the Tufts EBL website at http://www.tuftsebls.org/site/symposium/. The event is open to the general public.

About Alhaji Abubakari Lunna
The late Alhaji Abubakari Lunna was a celebrated teacher, drum-maker, virtuoso performer, and Ghanaian cultural expert. He is considered by many to be one of the most important and influential Ghanaian artists of his generation. He has served as teacher, consultant, and mentor to countless artists across the world, including Tufts University Professor of Music David Locke, director and found of Kiniwe and the Agbekor Society, since 1975.

Trained in the art of drumming by his biological and teaching fathers, Alhaji Abubakari Lunna worked for nearly thirty years as a professional artist with the Arts Council of Ghana’s Folkloric Company. As one of the few drummers of Dagbon with broad cosmopolitan experience, many Dagbana would seek his advice, direction, and counsel on problems that confront contemporary Africans. However, his work often extended far from Ghana. He was frequent guest artist and artist-in-residence in many collegiate and professional music and dance programs across North America. He had an especially close relationship with the Berklee College of Music and Tufts University. Over the last two decades, Alhaji Abubakari came to Tufts as guest artist or special artist-in-residence nearly every year. At the time of his passing, he was head of a very large family living in northern Ghana. Alhaji Abubakari Lunna was known until two years ago as Dolsi-naa Abubakari Lunna, his name changing upon completing the Hajj to Mecca.

Africa Fest 2009 is being presented at Tufts University with support from the Tufts Departments of Music, Drama/Dance, the Tufts Africana Center, the Tufts African Students Organizations, the Tufts Pan-African Alliance, the Tufts Emerging Black Leaders, and the Tufts Dean of Arts and Sciences Diversity Fund.

 

About Kiniwe and Professor David Locke
Tufts University Festival Hosts
Kiniwe - The Tufts African Music and Dance Ensemble
When someone calls, “Kiniwe,” which translates to “Are you there on the ready?” the group responds, “Yaa,” which means “For sure!”

Professor David Locke’s hands-on classes have taken this exhortation from West Africa as their performing name. These courses focus on traditional idioms of singing, dancing, and drumming that Professor Locke has studied in Ghana for decades. African dance movements, choreographic formations, song lyrics, drum parts, and polyrhythms are the course materials. Kiniwe is the performing name of three classes taught by Professor Locke at Tufts University: African Music Ensemble, West African Ewe Dance and West African Dagomba Dance. These are hands-on classes in which students learn to sing, drum, and dance a repertory of traditional West African music and dance. The classes introduce students to an exciting and challenging art form, as well as bring them closer to African civilization.

David Locke is a professor of music at Tufts University. He did his graduate studies in ethnomusicology at Wesleyan University under David McAllester, one of the founders of the field. J.H.K. Nketia, the best-known African music scholar, supervised his fieldwork in Ghana (1975-1977). He has written three books and numerous scholarly articles, and wrote the Africa chapter in Worlds of Music, a world music textbook. Locke directs Kiniwe, a performing ensemble at Tufts, and the Agbekor Society, a community-based study group.

About the Performing Ensembles

The Agbekor Society (African folkloric group)
Formed in 1979, the Agbekor Society is a group of friends who enjoy playing traditional African music. A core of the group's members studied with Professor David Locke at Tufts University over the last two decases. For many years the group offered public classes in music and dance in Greater Boston. Lately, the group has focused on weekly meetings of experienced members. The Society is modeled after the community drum-and-dance clubs found in West Africa.

 

Akpokli (West African folkloric group)
Akpokli! is a command called among the Achiame (a-cha-may), a small clan among the Ewe living in south-eastern Ghana, on the coast of West Africa. It is a strong word denoting power, and gives encouragement and inspiration. It is the name given to this Ottawa group by its Ghanaian father, Kwasi Dunyo.

Akpokli was established for adult performers by Rory Magill and Kathy Armstrong under the direction of Kwasi Dunyo in 1995. Akpokli has performed for celebrations at the residence of the High Commissioner for Ghana, His Excellency Oliver Lawluvi, and for his predecessor; likewise for the former High Commissioner for the Kingdom of Swaziland. The group has also performed for the Ghana Association of Ottawa, at 6th March Independence Day celebrations; at Black History Month celebrations; at the CKCU Ottawa Folk Festival; for CIDA, GRACE Canada and Worldwalk; and for enthusiastic audiences on nightclub dance floors.

Akpokli (ak-po-kleh) is a community group with a variety of shared interests and goals. It is a group of drummers and dancers dedicated to presenting to the larger community a variety of traditional and newer ïcreativeÍ styles learned from Ghanaian masters: Gahu and Bobobo as examples of popular Ewe music and dance; Kpanlogo from the Ga; the Ashanti Adowa; Takai from Dagbamba traditions. Knowledge of these styles and their cultural significance has been passed directly from some of Ghana's great drummers and dancers: Kwasi Dunyo, Godwin Agbeli, Alhaji Abubakari Lunna, Abraham Adzenyah, Helen Mensah, John Mensah, Joseph Ashong, Nii Tettey Tetteh.

More information and photographs are available at: http://www.baobabtree.org/html/groups.htm#akpokli

 

The Berklee College of Music African Music
The Berklee West African Drum and Dance Ensemble is a collective group of students and professionals from all over the world who have come together to perform the drumming and dances of various cultures in West Africa. Under the leadership of Berklee Professor, Joseph Galoeta, members of the Ensemble perform at concerts, special occasions, and schools through out the northeast. The performances are a celebration of life and death that illustrate various activities such as work, play, courtship, and conflict drawing from deep West African traditions. Many of the members travel abroad to pursue further study into African rhythm and dance. Working together, each member strives for traditional accuracy while leaving room enough for individual artistic flavor, thus, opening a plethora of human emotions.

For more information and more pictures visit: http://www.myspace.com/westafricandrumanddanceensemble

Imaginary Homeland (African fusion group)
Jazz composer David Rogers left his Missouri roots and his music conservatory training in the States to spend two years living in the home of master drummers in rural Ghana. Living in a thatch hut through dust storms and rain seasons, he studied the native drum language and history of the talking drum. When he returned, he formed Imaginary Homeland with three other American musicians whose combined experience stretches from Ghana and Uganda to the hills of West Virginia and downtown New York. Marlene Rice's soaring violin and Matt Pavolka's acoustic bass find the string sound in each of these traditions, while percussionist Mark Stone drives the rhythm. In their acclaimed CD, JUMP FOR GEORGE, Imaginary Homeland finds vivid connections between these and nearer American musical roots. The results will delight music lovers looking for a fresh sound rooted in the traditions of both Africa and the Americas.

Click the picture above and to the right for a higher resolution version.

More information and additional photographs are available at:
http://www.imaginaryhomeland.com/press.html

 

Natraj (the world-jazz ensemble)
From Boston to Toronto, and India to Ghana, Natraj has delighted listeners in clubs, concert halls, and festivals since 1987. Selected as Boston Best Jazz Band by the Improper Bostonian, Natraj captivates and excites audiences with its exotic textures, accessible melodies, and rhytmic energy. Performances include Ghana's PANAFEST, and India JazzYatra and Prayojana Music Festival. Over the past fifteen years, Natrak studied with Abubakari Lunna and performed with his at venues include the Regattabar, Ryles Jazz Club, and Tufts University. Natraj's CDs Deccan Dance and Song of the Swan feature pieces learned from and inspired by Mr. Lunna. At Africa Fest 2009, Natraj features saxophonist Phil Scarff, violinist Rohan Gregory, bassicst Michael Rivard, tabla and multipercussionist Jerry Leake, and drummer Bertram Lehmann.

Click the picture above and to the right for a higher resolution version.

More information and high res photographs visit http://www.sonicbids.com/natraj.

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Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses, in Boston, Medford/Somerville, and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's eight schools is widely encouraged.

The Tufts Department of Music offers a flexible and eclectic academic program leading to the Master of Arts degree in music. Students concentrate in composition, ethnomusicology, musicology, or theory, while having the opportunity to explore all these discipline, as well as the areas of music cognition, linguistics, sociology, and anthropology of music. The Tufts Department of Music is housed in the new Perry and Marty Granoff Music Center, home to the Distler Performance Hall and Fisher Performance Room. The Music Center hosts over 150 events and concerts annually, the majority of which are produced and presented by the Department of Music. Tufts University - Department of Music Granoff Music Center 20 Talbot Ave Medford, MA 02155 Press contact: Ryan A. Saunders Office: 617-627-2253 Box Office: 617-627-3679 Fax: 617-627-3967 Web: www.tufts.edu/as/music