FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 18, 2015
CONTACT:
Rebecca Bailey, Publicity Coordinator/Writer
Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
603.646.3991
Continental drift: West Africa joins the Andes in Nov. 4 concert
Photo: World Music Percussion Ensemble in concert, with director Hafiz Shabazz (standing at center, patterned shirt). Photo by Rob Strong.
HANOVER, NH—The Hop’s World Music Percussion Ensemble plus special guests lead a musical trek combining the rhythms and melodies of West Africa and South America in “Afro/Andean Fusion,” on Wednesday, November 4 at 7 pm in Spaulding Auditorium.
This seven-member ensemble joins student drummers and singers with regional professional musicians, under the direction of master West African drummer Hafiz Shabazz. They are joined for this concert by the Western, Mass.-based group Viva Quetzal, an Andean-influenced world music outfit that combines panpipes from Peru (one of the earliest instruments of the Americas, with the oldest known examples dating back to 4200 BCE) and the Venezuelan cuatro (a guitar-family instrument with a distinctive, ringing twang) with guitar, piano, flute, saxophone, bass and conga drums.
Selections include works by Mongo Santamaria and Coldplay as well as traditional Venezuela, Malian and Afro-Cuban songs, many of the latter based on rumba, which is the root of modern Cuban music.
Based in the Northampton, Mass., area, Viva Quetzal formed in 1986 as an acoustic group that focused on South American folk music. Guitarist Joe Belmont, bass player Rudi Weeks and saxophonist Jon Weeks gave the band a rock ’n’ roll edge that separate Viva Quetzal from the folklore pack.
After a peak in the mid-1990s, the group became less active but has reformed in the past several years, now with Chilean multi-instrumentalist Roberto Clavijo on pan pipes; Venezuelan pianist and cuatro player Abe Sanchez; and Cuban conga drummer William Rodriguez.
Shabazz, director of the World Music Percussion Ensemble since 1984, is an ethnomusicologist, master drummer and adjunct associate professor of Music at Dartmouth. He has also taught at University of California at Berkeley and Duke University. He has studied in Cuba, at University of Ghana and Federal University of Bahia, Brazil, and received a M.Ed. Degree from Cambridge College. He has performed with Max Roach, Lionel Hampton and Julius Hemphill, and with musician/griots from Africa. For many years he performed with Wind and Thunder, touring to France, the Caribbean, Canada and the U.S. From 1991 to 2005, he led the world-jazz band Bala Bala. An initiated member of the Ancestral Shrine of the Ashanti Nation in Ghana, he has authored articles and created an educator’s guide in conjunction with the 2004 Oscar-winning movie Ray, and was a consultant with John Chernoff in the writing of African Rhythms and African Sensibilities. He also teaches percussion to gifted and autistic children.
RELEVANT LINKS
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/fall15wmpe
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/world_music_percussion_ensemble?menu_id=0D2669EA-465A-4124-8000-A49905D0ADB0&sToken=1%2C32c4bc11%2C5548da54%2CD2511BD5-35EC-40D4-A9A3-EEED3829BD01%2CNfIwMNLGRZ9gxdSnruI3lbhjH%2BY%3D
Download high-resolution photos:
https://hop.dartmouth.edu/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=A14ACB33-679C-469F-9E07-5A08469894E7&sessionlanguage=&SessionSecurity::linkName=
CALENDAR LISTING:
“Afro/Andean Fusion,” a concert by the World Music Percussion Ensemble
Join this musical trek combining the rhythms and melodies of West Africa and South America’s great mountain chain. Led by master drummer Shabazz, this engaging ensemble is joined, on pan pipes and vocals, by Chilean multi-instrumentalist Roberto Clavijo, a veteran of the internationally touring groups Guamary, Gypsy Real and Viva Quetzal; Venezuelan pianist Abe Sanchez, from Viva Quetzal and other Latin ensembles; and, on reeds, Jon Weeks, whose affiliations include Viva Quetzal, Orquestra Unidad and The Temptations.
Wednesday, November 4, 7 pm
Spaulding Auditorium, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover NH
$10, Dartmouth students $5
Information: hop.dartmouth.edu or 603.646.2422
* * *
Founded in 1962, the Hopkins Center for the Arts is a multi-disciplinary academic, visual and performing arts center dedicated to uncovering insights, igniting passions, and nurturing talents to help Dartmouth and the surrounding Upper Valley community engage imaginatively and contribute creatively to our world. Each year the Hop presents more than 300 live events and films by visiting artists as well as Dartmouth students and the Dartmouth community, and reaches more than 22,000 Upper Valley residents and students with outreach and arts education programs. After a celebratory 50th-anniversary season in 2012-13, the Hop enters its second half-century with renewed passion for mentoring young artists, supporting the development of new work, and providing a laboratory for participation and experimentation in the arts.