New season, new opportunities
Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble is more than a music group; more than an ensemble of talented jenbe kids who enjoy percussion music. TRJE is a family affair–a hands-on, hand and stick percussion Afrikan music ensemble. Over the past 13 years ensemble members have learned how to be mentored by peers and a collective of adults who believe in them.
Listen as Kemit and Diarra speak about their experiences with the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble. And pass the word on up the line. If you know a young person between the ages of 13 and 18 who’d be interested in Afrikan percussion studies and broadening their circle of relationships, have them give us a call at TRIAAC. They or their parents can ask for Ketu, at 260 969‑9442.
A life changing experience
My time with the Three Rivers Jenbé Ensemble has been a life changing experience. I’ve had the opportunity to travel to unique places and meet people from all walks of life. I’ve also gotten the chance to study with worldwide known jenbé and dunun masters such as Bolokada Condé, Famoudou Konaté, and Moustapha Bangoura, all of whom are viewable on YouTube.
Being in the ensemble has introduced me to ways of embracing people and welcoming them into my community. I’ve been involved with the group ever since I can remember. To me the members of the ensemble are family and we treat each other just as if that’s what we are. We learn the traditional music of the Malinké people from West Africa. Every few years we get the opportunity to go to West Africa to study up close and get a different perspective on the way of life of a people who are truly embodied in their culture. —Kemit
I wanted to dance
“I joined TRJE when I was eight years old. My two older sisters, Anisah and Kenyetta, joined before I did. What lured me into joining the group was the performances; it seemed as if everyone was engaged and having fun. I also loved the African attire. I always enjoyed the dancing and singing.” —Diarra
Jenbé Auditions Open
Three Rivers Jenbé Ensemble Mandé music education forum and performance platform is for 13–18-year olds who are interested in Afrikan percussion music.
If you are or know a young person who would want to enrich their life with a genuine community experience inspired by cross-cultural relationships and community service, click on the button to get an audition form, and have them call TRIAAC (260 969‑9442) to arrange an audition.
Backstory
For 12 seasons TRJE has been inspiring children and adults with its music, movement, and organization. In May 2011 TRJE completed its twelfth season. Our objective remains the building of community one child, and one family at a time.
TRJE propagates, preserves and presents an authentic interpretation of traditional Mandé music, dance, and song with members celebrating family ties, nurturing elder-youth and peer relationships, and developing a practice of spiritual and intellectual inquiry. Students manage the ensemble’s rehearsals and coordinate the repertoires, musical arrangements, and presentations for performances.
Rehearsals are held at TRIAAC on Sunday, from 4:30–7:30PM, from September through May. Workshops are conducted in two parts: Griot Studies wherein students use oral and written presentation skills to enhance their knowledge and self-concept, and the music rehearsal that focuses on musical literacy and stage bearing. TRJE performances are inspiring, filled with youthful zeal, professional bearing, eclectic energy, and exceptional skill.
During its 12-year history, TRJE has performed to more than 200,000 people in audience in four states, from elementary school to college students, and church members to festivalgoers. Throughout our history, we have maintained an average 5-year student retention rate.
TRJE apprentices have taught teachers in high schools and colleges. The ensemble has spent a month-long study tour culturally immersed learning from master drummers and dancers in Guinea, West Afrika, and hosted residencies for exceptional artists, including Famoudou Konaté, the Chicago Djembe Project, Moustapha Bangoura, Alisco Diabaté, Abass Camara, Mandjou Mara, and Bolokada Condé.
Fish Fry Friday
Fish Fry fundraiser @ Unity
Unity Barbership Friday, May 18th
Three Rivers Institute of Afrikan Art & Culture will serve up lip-smacking Talapia sandwiches and coleslaw this Friday, May 18th, from 4-8PM. Unity is located at 921 E. Pontiac Street, Fort Wayne, just east of Hanna Street. Orders can be placed in advance by calling 260 969‑9442.
There will be entertainment, as well, featuring Minneapolis SpokenWord artist Mankwe Ndosi, and TRIAAC’s own Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble. Come early, eat hardy, and commune with your neighbors.
A Taste of New York in Downtown Fort Wayne
A Downtown Artists’ Venue
Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe
Music isn’t hard to find in the Summit City, and the quality of musicianship is top notch. But there is one thing that sets TRIAAC’s Acoustic SpokenWord Café apart from other venues — it’s an artists’ venue. Patrons who come to the Café come to hear the musicians and poets who bring their work to the boards. Much like Fort Wayne’s former Toast & Jam or the the atmosphere and patron expectation at New York’s Village Vanguard, “when the artists present everyone listens.”
Sunny Taylor played the Café in February, and it was the first time she’d played “unplugged” in a good while Sunny is only one of the incredible Fort Wayne talents that have graced the boards at the Café this season. Among the others have been Keith Flye, John Ward, Carol Lockridge, Megan King, the AfroDisiacs, Fatima Washington, the Bryan Nellems Trio, the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble, and Mathis Grey. And the season doesn’t wrap up until the end of June.
And the incredible mix the Café presents is among its most touted aspects. The artistic mix features musicians, poets and a regular Open Mic space at each sitting of the Café. Poets who’ve appeared at the Café since September include Helen Frost, Emmanuel Ortiz, George Kalamaras, Ketu Oladuwa, Mary Ann Cain, Troy Bigelow, Paula Ashe, Tanika Burt, Linda Bess, Teresa Vazquez, and Kemit Oladuwa.
The Acoustic SpokenWord Café is designed as a space for artists to be heard in Downtown Fort Wayne. It’s a venue where artists come to create, display, present, explore, re-member and remember, engage and entice, invite and move, act and embody, plant and germinate—without rushing or feeling the pressure “to perform” over the night-life din.
Continuuum, a new jazz ensemble featuring Quincy Sanders on alto sax, Marco Rubio on bass, and Jesse West on piccolo bass, with Bryan Nellems on drums will close out the winter session of the Café, on March 24. The featured poet for the evening is Aric Curry, a young artist who has developed his skills at the Weisser Park Community Center’s SBA program. The Café is open the second and fourth Saturdays of the month, from September through June. Rounding out it’s third year, TRIAAC received funding from Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne to support the work of the café.
Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble at the Cafe
TRJE comes home to Acoustic Cafe
The three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble will perform live at the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe on February 25, 2012. The evening will begin at 7PM and close out at 10PM. TRJE, as the ensemble is popularly known, performs an interpretation of the traditional dunun and jenbe drum ensemble of the Mande-speaking people of Guinea, West Afrika.
This group of students has been playing together the last three years, taking over from the graduating ensemble members who preceded and trained them. It has long been an artistic practice of the Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble to have the qualified students teach their peers. The members have from six to ten years experience with the ensemble.
The ensemble has recently performed at Washington Center Elementary School and the Friendly Fox Coffeehouse.This performance marks the first time the ensemble has performed in its own space for more than a year.
The Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe is hosted at TRIAAC, 501 E. Brackenridge Street. The cost of admission is $5.00. For more information call TRIAAC at 260 96909442.
Fabulous Jenbe kids on new drums
TRJE blend Ibo Ekwe with Guinean Krin drums
Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble bring new flavors
The Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble Saturday night reprised its initial performance at the Friendly Fox Coffeehouse on Fort Wayne’s South Side with a rousing performance that warmed patrons despite the intemperate weather that blanketed the region with a few inches of heavy snow. Bringing their regular traditional Guinean dunun and jenbe drums interpretations of the music of the Mande-speaking people of West Afrika, the ensemble fortified their instrumental range with the addition of the Nigerian Ekwe and Guinean Krin drums.
The ensemble is recruting students interested in learning about the Afrikan heritage in American music. For more information call TRIAAC at 260 969‑9442 or hit the button and fill out the audition application and email to triaacexad@comcast.net.
Audition
Nellems Trio and Linda Bess on tap at the SpokenWord Cafe
Good music meets thoughtful words
Jazz, Soul & SpokenWord at the Acoustic Cafe
The Bryan Nellems Trio will open the show at the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe on January 28, 2012. The recently formed ensemble features Bryan Nellems on drums, Phil Shurger on lead guitar and Marco Franco on bass. The trio will be doing jazz and soul covers as well as debuting some original work by Nellems and Franco. This up and coming trio is making its mark in the world of music and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon; so keep your eyes and ears open for what’s next to come for the Bryan Nellems Trio.
Poet Linda Bess will read new and resurrected work that explores identity, reflection, addiction, love, hate, and life. She finds her way through poetry that explores her identity of being female, Asian-Caucasian, and American. She turns to her past to find answers through exploring photographs, quotations, and artistic work of others to create poetry, as well. Her experience of being a recovering alcoholic, having chronic pain, and being bipolar leads her on a path from making grave mistakes to finding new life in sobriety and health. By exploring the paradigms of love and hate in everyday life, her work begs for answers that all of us seek – why too often through suffering we must fight to find light.
For information about the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe, call 260 969‑9442 or email aswc_triaac@comcast.net. See you there!
SpokenWord Cafe featuring AfroDisiacs
2012 Cafe opens with AfroD sound
Hot congas and vocal guitar are thrilling
If you listen to WBOI’s music roundup you’re bound to hear that the AfroDisiacs is playing somewhere in the region. One
AfroDisiacs bringing the funk
of the Fort Wayne’s most sought after duos, the AfroDisiacs features William Brown on congas, and Mike Rogers on guitar; the partners bring seductive vocals to their original mterial and covers.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana based group has an interesting story… What started out as a two-piece acoustic show, evolved into a group performing shows as a four-piece AND a two-piece. Quite frequently at that. The two-piece features a world/soul/acoustic sound, including original songs, as well as renditions of covers, giving that fresh Afro-D sound. The four-piece, on the other hand, features a more jazz/funk/fusion feel, involving mostly all originals!
The two-piece will be on tap Saturday, January 14, from 7-10PM. Admission is $5.00. AfroDisiacs hopes to share their love of music with everyone, and begin an out of town tour, coming soon!!!
Opening 2012 at the SpokenWord Cafe
2012 Powerhouse Duo opens Cafe
Fatima Washington at the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe
Saturday, January 14 the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe opens the season with two incredible Fort Wayne talents: the alluring Fatima Washington, and the dynamic Afrodisiacs.
Fatima opens SpokenWord Cafe
“Before fame, photographs, and tabloids, there is talent. And Washington has it — the kid of voice the ear follows through winding scales…It’s both soft and powerful filled with the echoes of R&B and soul pioneers such as Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle.” –Emma Downs, The Journal Gazette
She’s a regular at Blu Tomato. She’s opened for nationally known acts. Now, the alluring ly soulful Fatima Washington is bringing her voice and charisma to the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe, in downtown Fort Wayne.
After taking off four years to attend college, Fatima made up her mind to pursue music full time. At home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fatima started singing background vocals on various studio recordings for Sweetwater Sound. Most recently, Fatima has opened for Bobby Valentino, the SOS Band, Adina Howard, The Whispers, Paul Anka, Ty Causey, and sung alongside Tony Award winner Heather Headley. Additionally, Fatima has toured New York, California, Chicago, Atlanta, and various parts of Europe, including Paris, leaving indelible marks at every event.
Fatima recently released the first single, Fool for Love, off of her yet to be titled debut CD. Fatima has a strong hand in the evolution of her CD working with producers such as Michael Johnson, DJ Polaris, and Eclipse.
In a short time, Fatima has gone from just another young performer to having her own night at The Blu Tomato every Saturday, Fridays at The Legion Post 148, local recognition, and this is only the beginning. “Fatima Washington was once shy. You’d never know it to see her on stage now… to hear her these days is to realize that the wallflower has most certainly bloomed.” (Sean Smith, Fort Wayne Reader). With the talent that she possesses this singer/songwriter is well on her way to success in the music industry. She’s just waiting to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing in front of the right people.
TRIAAC New Year Schedule
Opening the way
New schedule opens more learning opportunities
“A people losing sight of origins are dead. A people deaf to purposes are lost.”–Ayi Kweh Armah..
It is wise to return to origins to retrieve what has been lost
“Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi”–Akan Proverb
Translation: “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.”
In his introduction to two thousand seasons Armah tells us that having lost our way it would be most appropriate for us to go back to our origins to rediscover what went awry along our path to the present so that we might use our intelligence and insight today to correct it. The Akan of Ghana refer to this process as Sankofa, retracing one’s footsteps along life’s path to see what has been lost or forgotten that would be of use today. Of course, the human path is one that walks backwards recalling the experience of our ancestors.
And so as we enter 2012, TRIAAC is retracing its course to determine what has been lost that might be regained through retrospection and applied to today’s environment and experiences. We began with the conscious practice of re-membering our Afrikan past for ourselves and children, and applying the energy of that quest to making music and inciting movement, both physical and intellectual.
At the center of the practice is the Malinke dunun and jenbe ensemble that is a family of tones and rhythms that combine to make a singularly distinct music representing the strength of Mande culture and familial tradition. The symbolic, social, political and spiritual values of that culture as it has been extended through its many masterful practitioners since the 1960s, has been rooted in Fort Wayne for more than a decade now.
In launching our programs for the third quarter, TRIAAC has sought to make this harmonic and rhythmic practice available to more children and adults. Hit the “Schedule” button to download a .pdf file of our third quarter schedule.
Schedule And contact us with any questions you may have by clicking the contact link.
Taking drumming to the bank
Drumming in the New Year
Re-membering what strengthens our souls
You cannot relive a moment that has passed but you can recall its vitality and bank its emotive strength as both inspiration and reference.
Drumming is an act of re-creation that is both inspired and referential. We came into the world as living souls with the drumming heartbeat of our mothers resounding in our preternatural ears and resonating in our cells as our bodies formed in the womb. When we began drumming with Three Rivers Jenbe Ensemble in 1999, it was a way of centering and fixing identity that was based on strengthening families and growing children with the understanding that they were beautiful, creative, and meant to be free. The jenbe and dunun were symbols of that freedom and instruments for their creativity. Now, of course, TRJE has grown into TRIAAC but identity and family extension remain at the institute’s core, and the primary symbol and instrument for liberating cultural expression here at TRIAAC remains the drum.
When Afrikans were brought to the Americas our language, musical instrumentation, sense of time, rhythm and movement came with us. In these new places in the Americas we fashioned the drums we had left behind, and soon our captors grew wise to our communication. In many places throughout Americas slaveocracy they outlawed our playing of the drum, and in some instances even made its playing a legal prohibition. Playing the drum was both a form of communication and a marker of resistance to oppression.
We play the drum today with the echo of the past resounding in our beings, understanding that in our hands is an instrument for revitalizing the human spirit, and calling a people mentally vanquished back to themselves. This is a time for recalling people back to themselves from the clutches of the plutarchy who have seized our national vitality.
Drumming is a community action that opens possibilities of communication and action. Join us…
Drum Line, Circle Up
Identity Counts drumming connection
There is a session right just for you
To paraphrase Kool Moe Dee, self knowledge is king. Clearly, no information is as important as knowing who you are . Cultural understanding teaches that the drum (heartbeat) is at the core of any culture. So we’re working to learn more about ourselves through the practice of Mande drumming in community circle.
Family is the matrix of Afrikan social structure, and family isn’t nuclear but extended. From this extension comes a strength of identity that informs us who we are in relation, and what our responsibilities are to family and community. We extrapolate this social order to the drum circle. We position ourselves in a circle so that each individual has a clear view of those with whom she sits the circle. There is both a security and an accountability in this formation that is liberating — once the individual is able to relax and let go of their critical self judgement.
Through our decades of work with young people and adults, they have taught us how to facilitate their learning. Effective instruction is culture specific and individual, yet, at its core, is the collective. While we are teaching the cultural music tradition of another people, we are learning through the lens of American cultural perception. The facilitator/learner assumes the responsibility for communicating clearly (though not necessarily verbally). They must manipulate and witness the experience of the moment to the benefit of the student. It is the facilitators responsibility to see and hear each students comfort level and effect ways of assisting them to integrate their momentary experience. The result is a heightened awareness and understanding that identity counts.
TRIAAC will offer Identity Counts drumming for learners at all levels beginning in January, from pre-school to adults of all ages. Why? We have experienced the beneficial effects of community drumming first-hand, and witnessed its impact on the youth and adults with whom we have worked. The traditional Afrikan drumming practice that’s happening at TRIAAC is a community building experience. Drumming within a circle of learners strengthens self-confidence, opens doors to becoming a better listener, and facilitates left-right brain synchronization. The beneficial effects of drumming, rhythm and sound have been validated by health care professionals around the world as stress reducing and wonderfully revitalizing for mind, body and soul.
In our own practice we have found that Mande drumming:
- Promotes active listening
- Develops team spirit and ensemble skills
- Builds self-confidence
- Improves tolerance and respect
- Fosters heightened feelings of well-being
- Increases physical strength through aerobic exercise
- It improves musical ability, timing and hand-ear coordination
- Enhances cultural awareness
Come drum with us on Wednesday evening, from 6:00 to 7:30PM. Not to worry if you don’t have a drum, we have authentic hand-carved Guinean jenbes that you can use. We’re located at the corner of Brackenridge and Clay streets, In Fort Wayne, IN.
Hit the “Identity” button to learn more.
Afrika Awake
- Envoy Wants Sustained Peace & Security in MRU Basin May 18, 2012[Heritage] Liberia's Ambassador accredited to Guinea has stressed the need for sustained peace and security among neighboring states. According to Dr. E. Sumo Jones, as the neighboring states remain friendly, they look out for each other's political stability without harboring dissidents to enter and bring about political instability. The Liberian […]
- Liberians Return Home as Refugee Status Deadline Looms in Country May 16, 2012[UNHCR] Conakry - During almost 20 years of exile in Guinea, Joseph did not know if his family was alive or dead. When he recently found out by chance that they had survived the attack that caused him to flee his native Liberia, he decided he must go back. […]
Fort Wayne Midday
- Artcentric- Friday May 18, 2012 May 18, 2012Today’s artcentric edition explores the heart & soul of sharing music: Kira Downey & Eric Clancy discuss the impact of UU’s ‘Music on Old Mill’ series, then it’s FWPhil’s Marcella Trentacosti on the importance of music for and by kids! […]Andersonk
- Outer Spaces- Thursday May 17, 2012 May 17, 2012It’s time for another edition of Outer Spaces with Sean Bueter and gardening guru Doug Hackbarth! […]Andersonk
