Have jenbé drum will travel

Posted by admin on Nov 25, 2011 in Frontline, News & Events, Visiting Artist Blog | 0 comments

Moussa Bolokada Condé

Unpar­al­leled jenbé genius set for residencies

Moussa Bolokada Condé teaches the jenbé and dunun drum­ming tra­di­tion of his peo­ple. An acclaimed mas­ter of his instru­ments and the cul­ture from which they emerge, Bolokada is well-versed in impart­ing his knowl­edge to stu­dents at all lev­els, from ele­men­tary to college.

In the video above Bolokada worked with World Music stu­dents at IPFW, in Fort Wayne, IN. Below, his work with Tai­wanese stu­dents is evident. 

TRIAAC wants to dis­cuss how we can bring this genius of the jenbé to your stu­dents to enhance their music and world cul­ture edu­ca­tion while bring­ing them the great joy of the tra­di­tional Malinké per­cus­sion. Con­tact us.

Poets sign-up now

Posted by admin on Nov 19, 2011 in News & Events, SpokenWord Blog | 0 comments

Café Decem­ber 10 Poets’ Round-robin

Word­slingers, Word­smiths, Wordmagicians

The last Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Cafe of 2011 will fea­ture the undi­luted Megan King. When Megan last appeared at the Café, she was accom­pa­nied by Daniel Zam­brano on cello and key­boards. River of Moons, whose lyrics were inspired by an Andre Bre­ton poem, with the music influ­enced by a 1998 Har­vest Moon, is a taste of that work. Just scroll to the bot­tom of the page and click the music link. Enjoy.

We’ve no doubt that Megan King will be in full effect on Decem­ber 10th, and a per­fect com­pli­ment to the round-robin of poets who’ll step to the mic that evening to inspire, antag­o­nize, wake up, calm , and oth­er­wise pique our con­scious­ness. Don’t miss this last Cafe of the year, it’s bound to be an inspiration.

Poets, if you want to join the round-robin here are the ground rules:

1. You’ll get to read only one poem at a time and it will some­way need to be tied to the work that pre­cedes it.
2. Who­ever draws the first straw will need to begin with a work related to “connection(s).”
3. Intro­duc­tions to the work should be no more than one sentence.
   

The intent is to dis­cover the “flow” oper­at­ing on this par­tic­u­lar evening. Should be fun. Sign up!!! Go to the Con­tact Us page and leave a mes­sage. We’ll get back with you.

Carol Lockridge had the Mojo Working

Posted by admin on Nov 13, 2011 in News & Events, SpokenWord Blog | 0 comments

Work­ing Mojo at the Spo­ken­Word Cafe

Carol Lock­ridge and Friends all the way live

The Novem­ber Cafe proved a steamy mix with Carol Lock­ridge belt­ing out the Blues and ser­e­nad­ing the soft sounds to a packed house. Fort Wayne’s Blues Diva, who has been crowned Indiana’s Blues Woman of the Year, sang songs rang­ing from the play­ful “You can Have My Hus­band  to the Soul­ful “God Bless the Child” sang for Julia Meek on her birthday. 

Lock­ridge was back by Jeff McCray on gui­tar, and Fey Fey Mous­sou, TRIAAC’s house drum­mer and co-organizer.   Check out the entire range of songs on TRIAAC’s Youtube Channel 

ASWC | Youtube  

Tanika Burt turns up the heat

Poet’s Exs­presso Shots put the Cafe on boil

Tanika Burt’s poetry was the per­fect com­pli­ment for Cafe’s focus on the boun­ti­ful cre­ativ­ity of Black women. The sec­ond set was even more mean­ing­ful in that Tanika’s sis­ters were in the house and in full effect. The give and take between audi­ence and per­former was New York small cafe rich with the music and spo­ken­word move­ment of black life.

Check out the Acoustic SpokenWord’s Youtube Chan­nel by hit­ting the but­ton above. Until December…

Blues meets Soul at the SpokenWord Cafe

Posted by admin on Nov 9, 2011 in News & Events, SpokenWord Blog | 0 comments

Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Cafe

Lock­ridge & Burt song and floetry at the Cafe

Sat­ur­day evening promises to be big fun and a truck load of inspi­ra­tion for Sum­mit City res­i­dents. The Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Cafe will open with the spicy blues influ­enced vocals of Carol Lock­ridge, a Detroit native relo­cated to Fort Wayne. Carol’s sung the blues with some of the best includ­ing Bobby Rush, Lat­ti­more, and Denise LaSalle. 

Raised up in “the church” the fla­vor of Lockridge’s vocals is filled with the grit of real life and fueled by the emo­tions that any­one liv­ing can latch onto. Don’t miss her, she’ll be on the boards about 7:15PM.

Tanika Burt is the other half of the Spo­ken­Word Cafe’s fare for November’s offer­ing. Wow! Tanika’s pas­sion for life res­onates through the Cafe. She’s appeared on two other occas­sions in tan­dem with other poets, and her mag­netic res­o­nance was just too great to keep bot­tled up in the col­lec­tive caul­dron. Tanika calls her work floetry, and flow it does from the easy mun­dane roots of expe­ri­ence to the the soar­ing vocal res­pi­ra­tion of life that this Black woman man­ages with spo­ken­word and song.  Hey, I can’t wait.

And tying the evening together as host­ess and emcee will be Clydia Early Oladuwa. Come one, come all! You’re bound to have a great time. See you there!!!

5 scholarships for adult drummers

Posted by admin on Nov 8, 2011 in Frontline, News & Events | 0 comments

TRIAAC offers 5 adults 3 free classes

Drum­mers get on the jenbe-dunun beat

The Three Rivers Insti­tute of Afrikan Art & Cul­ture is open­ing the way for five adult learn­ers to expe­ri­ence the fun, cama­raderie, and energy rush of tra­di­tional Mande jenbe and dunun drum­ming. Begin­ning today, TRIAAC is offer­ing 5 adult learn­ers the chance to take 3 90-minute ses­sions free. The offer ends Decem­ber 8.

To reg­is­ter, adults 18-years or older should fill out the appli­ca­tion and email it back to TRIAAC. The first five adults to do so will receive admis­sion to the classes (a value of $60.00), which includes the in-class drum rentals.

Schol­ar­shipThe tra­di­tional Mande drum­ming at TRIAAC is offered through its JATA Adult Drum­ming Work­shops, offered Wednes­day evenings from 6:00–7:00PM, in seven-week work­shops. The new work­shop begins Novem­ber 9th and con­tin­ues through Novem­ber 21st. Reg­u­lar costs for the 90-minute classes is $130.00 or $20.00 per session.

The work­shop is open to begin­ners and inter­me­di­ate stu­dents. Advanced stu­dents (stu­dents with con­sid­er­able tra­di­tional jenbe and dunun expe­ri­ence) should con­tact TRIAAC to arrange spe­cial classes or pri­vate instruc­tion. For more infor­ma­tion con­tact TRIAAC.

Jenbe at the Philmore on Broadway

Posted by admin on Nov 7, 2011 in News & Events, TRJE Blog | 0 comments

TRJE rocks Philmore on Broadway

My Fort Wayne 46807 build­ing community

Sun­day after­noon was live with enter­tain­ment in the 46807 zip code dis­trict. The My Fort Wayne — 46807 orga­niz­ing com­mit­tee hosted a meet and greet at The Philmore on Broad­way, the top enter­tain­ment venue in the 07 dis­trict in the Fort Wayne.

On the boards when we arrived was Michael Pat­ter­son singing and play­ing the blues. Shortly after arriv­ing, Fey Fey Mous­sou grabbed a drum and began accom­pa­ny­ing Michael on the jenbe drum. All con­sid­ered it was an effec­tive expres­sion of com­mu­nity; one that absolutely pleased the 07+ res­i­dents in attendance. 

The event was spon­sored by Pathfinder Com­mu­nity Con­nec­tions, and Pat Turner was right there on the case meet­ing and greet­ing every­one who passed trough the door. John Stein­bach was the emcee (com­mu­nity orga­nizer) pron­ci­pally respon­si­ble for pulling the enter­tain­ment together for the event.

When the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensem­ble took to the boards about 4PM, there were about 50 peo­ple in the house. Known for their treat­ments of tra­di­tional Mande music, from dif­fer­ing regions of Guinee, West Afrika, the five mem­bers of the ensem­ble who pre­sented were on fire. Dur­ing the 45-minute set they pleased the crowd and even man­aged to get a few par­tic­i­pants on their feet dancing. 

The ensem­ble can next be seen at Grace Col­lege in Winona Lake, on Novem­ber 16, and the fol­low­ing day on the cam­pus of IPFW, at Walb Union for National Edu­ca­tion Week.

Blues meets Soul at the SpokenWord Cafe

Posted by admin on Nov 5, 2011 in News & Events, SpokenWord Blog | 0 comments

Novem­ber Cafe to serve up Blues & Poetry

Carol Lock­ridge & Tanika Burt-a night of soul­ful reflection

Next Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 12th, will bring the unique and soul­ful tal­ents of two dynamic women to Fort Wayne’s Down­town cre­ative arts scene. Carol Lock­ridge who has wowed the Sum­mit City since mov­ing here from the Motor City will per­form in a tour de force per­for­mance bring­ing the Blues, sul­try Jazz, pos­si­bily some Pop, and cer­tainly the superb vocal styling and voice that earned her creds wher­ever she’s per­formed, be it around town or open­ing for named enter­tain­ers such as Bobby Rush or Denise LaSalle.

Lock­ridge will open the evening, and then Floetry artist Tanika Burt will bring her unique and soul­ful ren­der­ings of her own poetic com­po­si­tions. An excel­lent spo­ken­word artist who has appeared at the Acoustic Spo­ken­Word Cafe on sev­eral occa­sions, Tanika can also be expected to add song to her renderings.       

Building community one family at a time

Posted by admin on Nov 4, 2011 in Frontline, TRJE Blog | 0 comments

Com­mu­nity is a real­ity that TRIAAC takes seri­ously. In fact, our model for devel­op­ment is build­ing com­mu­nity one fam­ily at a time. And so it’s quite nat­ural for our insti­tute, which is born from the under­stand­ing that Afrikan peo­ple must recon­nect with our fam­ily link­ages, to sup­port the “My fort Wayne –46807″ campaign.

6 Sinte

Our Three Rivers Jenbe Ensem­ble will be present this Sat­ur­day when the cam­paign comes to the Philmore on Broad­way. Join us there at 4PM when our tal­ented young musi­cians take the stage. We’ll be push­ing TRIAAC mem­ber­ships and com­mu­nity link­ages, so look for us.

What about those fabuloius jenbe kids

Posted by admin on Nov 2, 2011 in Frontline, News & Events | 0 comments

Three Rivers Jenbe Ensem­ble on stage

TRJE brought the fire and the funk

Con­grat­u­la­tions to the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensem­ble who brought the fire and the funk to the stage at the Auer Per­for­mance Hall on the IPFW cam­pus last Sat­ur­day night. The young play­ers opened for the incred­i­ble Moussa Bolokada Conde and the Sum­mit City AfroPop Sextet.

The mem­bers –Anisah, Tim, Ellen, Kemit, Tay­lor, Anthony, and Diarra were poised, pro­fes­sional and on fire. Their 35-minute set brought a stand­ing ova­tion from the 400-plus audi­ence, many of who were in the the­atre for the first time. The Sat­ur­day night per­for­mance was the first leg in TRJE’s fall tril­ogy of performances.

On Wednes­day, Novem­ber 16, they’ll be in con­cert at 6:45PM, at Grace Col­lege in Winona Lake, IN. And the fol­low­ing Thurs­day, Novem­ber 17, at 7PM, they’ll be back at IPFW, but this time at Walb Union ball­room for Inter­na­tional Edu­ca­tion Week. 

The ensem­ble has been in exis­tence since the fall of 1999. This group­ing took over from the class that grad­u­ated in 2008 and 2010. The youth are self-organized and directed, with TRIAAC staff super­vis­ing and coun­sel­ing their admin­is­tra­tion and artis­tic direction.

If you know a young per­son between 13–18 years old who might be inter­ested in play­ing the tra­di­tional music of the Mande peo­ple of West Afrikan, with some incred­i­ble Amer­i­can youth hit the but­ton below and get them involved.

Audi­tion App

JATA Mande Drum Workshop

Posted by admin on Oct 30, 2011 in Frontline, News & Events | 0 comments

An adult ensem­ble groove

Since Papa Ladji Camara intro­duced authen­tic Mande jenbe drum­ming to Amer­ica in the mid-1950s, play­ing with Fodeba Keita’s Les Bal­let Africains, the instru­ment has made its emi­nence known world­wide to the point of being a com­mon sight from small town USA to rural China, and world major cities. Across the board, peo­ple have found the jenbe to be a strong and res­o­nant vehi­cle for voic­ing their self-expression.

Papa Ladji toured the US in the late ‘50s with the Bal­let, and in 1959 met the leg­endary Chief James Hawthorne Bey. After Bal­let per­for­mances, Papa Ladji would meet Chief Bey at the “African Room” at 44th Street and 7th Avenue in Man­hat­tan, NYC, where they would play till the wee hours of the morn­ing. Together they pop­u­lar­ized the jenbe and Mande music among Afrikan Amer­i­cans who dur­ing the period were re-exploring their Afrikan identity.

Today, through­out the world, drum­ming is a com­mu­nal event where every­one present takes part and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the form of clap­ping, danc­ing and singing accom­pany the drum­ming. That com­mu­nal cir­cle is cru­cial to feel­ing the pulse of the music and the com­mu­nity of drummers.

So join our cir­cle on Wednes­day evenings, 6–7:30PM, at TRIAAC, 501 E. Brack­en­ridge Street, Fort Wayne, IN.

To reg­is­ter fill out the form and bring it with you to class. Each ses­sion lasts 7 weeks, and dur­ing that time we’ll work on improv­ing your lis­ten­ing, time, hand­ing tech­nique, and build­ing a vocab­u­lary of sounds and pat­terns that will increase your abil­ity to play.

See you Wednesday.

For more infor­ma­tion call TRIAAC.