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.
Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe & Open House
Holiday gathering
Greeting community with joy
Date: Saturday, December 10, 2011
Open-House: 4-7pm
Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe: 7-10pm
Location: TRIAAC, 501 E. Brackenridge Street, Fort Wayne, IN
The Three Rivers Institute of Afrikan Art & Culture will host an Open-house with dinners available for $5.00. Come and enjoy delicious food, mini-workshops, demonstrations, arts, crafts, and more! The Open-house will be followed by the December Acoustic SpokenWord Café featuring dynamic singer-songwriter Megan King and a Drum Circle led by Ketu Oladuwa. Rounding out the evening will be a Poet’s Open Mic. Spread the word!
Come for the food and fun, stay for the soul stirring entertainment!
For more info visit triaac.org.
Megan King live at the SpokenWord Cafe
She’ll put a spell on you
Fantastic, impassioned, emotive
It’s been nearly two years since Megan King first wowed the audience at the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe. During that hiatus, the Warsaw-based songbird has been busy. She’s been busy in Nashville recording her third CD; has had a forced lay-off from the guitar, and experienced a painful personal injury. But she’s back now, and the SpokenWord Cafe is thrilled to have Megan back on our boards.
Sitting with Megan and listening to her haunting lyrics and exceptional delivery just might be a transformative experience. There’s no doubt the Summit City Music Scene is premiere in Northeast Indiana, and artists like Megan King, Carol Lockridge, Duane Ebby, Sunny Taylor, and Keith Flye are a testament to that fact.
Come on out and share the joy at the Acoustic SpokenWord Cafe on December 10th. You surely won’t regret it.
Have jenbé drum will travel
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
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:
- 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.
- Whoever draws the first straw will need to begin with a work related to “connection(s).”
- 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
Afrika Awake
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Fort Wayne Midday
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