Carleton’s African and Afro-Cuban Drum Ensembles to Give Outdoor Concert

The Carleton College African Drum Ensembles will perform their annual spring concert on Tuesday, June 2 at 4 p.m. outdoors on the campus Bald Spot.  The concert will feature performances by the 18-member African Drum Ensemble and a number of smaller Afro-Cuban ensembles, all under the direction of Carleton lecturer in percussion Jay Johnson. The event is free and open to the pubic, and the ensemble invites listeners of all ages to watch, clap along and dance at the outdoor concert.  In the event of rain, the performance will be held in the Sayles-Hill Great Space.  

The African Drum Ensemble will be performing songs from West Africa, including Ga/hu, Kinkah, Adawu and Agbiwu. The music is composed of a timeline played on a bell, a lead drummer who improvises and calls the rhythmic changes of the group, drummers who respond to these calls and several supporting parts. Instruction follows a traditional ear-training approach instead of relying on Western musical notation. For this performance, the ensemble will also be joined by special guests from the Carleton female a cappella group The Accidentals, who will sing the call-and-response on the song entitled “Pan Logo.” 

Several smaller Afro-cuban ensembles will perform songs that employ traditional Cuban rhythms such as Rumba Guaguancó and Palo. yes">  Instrumentation is slightly different than that of the African Drum ensemble, as instruments such as claves, palito and congas are incorporated.

Ensemble director Jay Johnson, a member of the Carleton staff since 1991, earned his bachelor’s and master’s of music degrees in percussion with an emphasis in ethnomusicology from the University of Minnesota. He is the 1999 recipient of a McKnight Artist Fellowship, and has had his original compositions produced by a number of theater companies across the country, including the Twin Cities’ own Guthrie Theater and Children’s Theater Company.  Johnson has performed or recorded with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera Company and the Dale Warland Singers.  In addition to directing the African and Afro-Cuban ensembles, Johnson also works as a producer in the Twin Cities and teaches applied orchestral percussion and ethnic drumming lessons at Carleton.

For more information or disability accommodations, contact the music department at (507) 222-4475.