Date: Fri 06-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: MICHEL

Quick Words:

schools-music-African

Full Text:

Foreign Adventure At HOM

(with cuts)

BY MICHELE HOGAN

Get your visas and passports ready, Asher Delerme, drummer, told the children

at Head O' Meadow School.

He said, "We'll be traveling from West Africa to the Caribbean, and to Puerto

Rico, where I come from."

The children were not just going along for the ride, explained Richard Hill,

master of ceremonies, but they would be part of the show!

Richard told the children that " Mikata is a word in the language from Ghana

and it means `all of us'!"

The four drummers beat out authentic rhythms while two African dancers brought

children up to dance with them.

Edwin Cedeno expertly played a warm-toned hundred-year-old balophone for the

children. He explained to the children how the gourds placed under the

xylophone keys amplified the sounds.

Richard Hill brought out a Donno , the talking drum , and showed the children

how it could "speak the way our voices speak."

The kindergarten to second grade children watched with rapt attention as

Richard squeezed the strings around his drum to tighten the skin on the drum

surface and make the musical pitch of the drum go higher.

He played a variety of rhythms at pitches that simulated the rising and

falling pitches of words, spoken in earnest.

When he said, a moment later, "the lion is coming," children recognized that

the instrument almost spoke these words.

He explained that village children would recognize this phrase "spoken" by the

drum and quickly go home until the danger, whatever it might be, had passed.

Mikata plays for children throughout Connecticut, but has also performed in

Asia.

Jeff McQuillan, band member, said that one of their most memorable

performances was in Japan. He said that the children "loved it there. When we

went through the audience, they pet us, like pets in a zoo!"

Jeff and his wife were recently honored by an appointment as a 1998 State

Troubadour by the Commission of the Arts.

They have been playing African music since Richard came back from Africa in

1984.

Brought to the school by the Head O' Meadow cultural arts committee, Mikata

combines education and entertainment in their 45-minute show.