Post by title1parent on Jan 8, 2009 6:25:08 GMT -5
www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/news/1367651,6_1_NA08_WAUBONSIE_S1.article
Students ready to make musical magic
Visiting artist demonstrates a new style
January 8, 2009
By TIM WALDORF twaldorf@scn1.com
Six percussion students stuck around Waubonsie Valley High School until nearly 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, waiting to play their piece, and, when they finally took the stage alongside guest artist Sowah Mensah, it was magical.
As they pounded out a raucous dance number on Mensah's gyils -- xylophones from Mensah's native Ghana whose sounds emanate from hollow calabash gourds strategically placed below the instrument's wooden keys -- a few members of the choir joined in, singing a traditional African song, and smiles crept across all of their faces.
IF YOU GO
What: Waubonsie Valley High School is inviting the community to attend a concert featuring 300 freshman music students performing music composed and arranged by guest artist Sowah Mensah, an ethnomusicologist and master drummer who serves as a music professor at both Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
When: 7:30 tonight
Where: The auditorium at Waubonsie Valley High School, 2590 Route 34 in Aurora.
"It'll be just like that tomorrow night," Mark Meyers, a vocal music teacher at Waubonsie, told the percussionists at the conclusion of the song. "Only another 100 or so people will be singing along with you."
A music professor at both Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., Mensah -- an ethnomusicologist, composer and master drummer -- has been working with Waubonsie's music students all week in preparation for the show they rehearsed Wednesday evening and will stage at 7:30 tonight. Although he's only been in town since Monday, students have been working on the show's music, which Mensah composed himself, since October.
"I'm just coming to take the credit," Mensah laughed. "These are the people who do the work. I'm just here to help put it together and help clean it up."
Cleaning it up has, in some cases, meant working with students who are learning instruments they never knew existed prior Mensah's arrival.
"Kids are playing on instruments they've never played before," he said. "So that's big. I think that's good experience for them."
But the instruments aren't the unfamiliar aspect of this show. There's also the music.
"What the bands and the orchestras are playing here is music that is created in the African style," Mensah said. "I have written it in Western notations so that ensembles like orchestras and bands can play it, but the style is very African. So it doesn't feel the same as the orchestra and band music they play. That means they have to operate very, very differently, and that's a challenge."
All of the pieces have African drums in them, too, which, added Mensah, creates a totally different feeling because audiences don't often hear them played alongside instruments found in tradition bands and orchestras.
That's what Mensah wants the students to take away from their experience of working with him.
"The way the music is organized, itself, is very different than the way Western music is," he said. "So they are learning a different way of making music."
Students ready to make musical magic
Visiting artist demonstrates a new style
January 8, 2009
By TIM WALDORF twaldorf@scn1.com
Six percussion students stuck around Waubonsie Valley High School until nearly 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, waiting to play their piece, and, when they finally took the stage alongside guest artist Sowah Mensah, it was magical.
As they pounded out a raucous dance number on Mensah's gyils -- xylophones from Mensah's native Ghana whose sounds emanate from hollow calabash gourds strategically placed below the instrument's wooden keys -- a few members of the choir joined in, singing a traditional African song, and smiles crept across all of their faces.
IF YOU GO
What: Waubonsie Valley High School is inviting the community to attend a concert featuring 300 freshman music students performing music composed and arranged by guest artist Sowah Mensah, an ethnomusicologist and master drummer who serves as a music professor at both Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.
When: 7:30 tonight
Where: The auditorium at Waubonsie Valley High School, 2590 Route 34 in Aurora.
"It'll be just like that tomorrow night," Mark Meyers, a vocal music teacher at Waubonsie, told the percussionists at the conclusion of the song. "Only another 100 or so people will be singing along with you."
A music professor at both Macalester College and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn., Mensah -- an ethnomusicologist, composer and master drummer -- has been working with Waubonsie's music students all week in preparation for the show they rehearsed Wednesday evening and will stage at 7:30 tonight. Although he's only been in town since Monday, students have been working on the show's music, which Mensah composed himself, since October.
"I'm just coming to take the credit," Mensah laughed. "These are the people who do the work. I'm just here to help put it together and help clean it up."
Cleaning it up has, in some cases, meant working with students who are learning instruments they never knew existed prior Mensah's arrival.
"Kids are playing on instruments they've never played before," he said. "So that's big. I think that's good experience for them."
But the instruments aren't the unfamiliar aspect of this show. There's also the music.
"What the bands and the orchestras are playing here is music that is created in the African style," Mensah said. "I have written it in Western notations so that ensembles like orchestras and bands can play it, but the style is very African. So it doesn't feel the same as the orchestra and band music they play. That means they have to operate very, very differently, and that's a challenge."
All of the pieces have African drums in them, too, which, added Mensah, creates a totally different feeling because audiences don't often hear them played alongside instruments found in tradition bands and orchestras.
That's what Mensah wants the students to take away from their experience of working with him.
"The way the music is organized, itself, is very different than the way Western music is," he said. "So they are learning a different way of making music."