UPCOMING EVENTS
Each year, the Department of Music at Princeton University hosts world renowned artists of African music to collaborate and create with students.
A range of concerts, interdisciplinary performances, and workshops in African music, dance, and culture are available to both the Princeton University community and public audiences.
We invite you to join us and experience firsthand the dynamic songs and rhythms of African music, both contemporary and traditional.
Visit the Department of Music at Princeton's Event Calendar for all upcoming music events.
African Music Ensemble Concert
SAHEL TRAIN
Richardson Auditorium
A West African music and Afrobeat performance under the artistic direction of Olivier Tarpaga.
African Music Ensemble Concert
WITH SPECIAL GUESTS:
LAGOS → OUAGA
Afrobeat (Nigeria)
Soukous (Congo)
Manding Rhythms (Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire)
Salieu Suso
Jason Treuting
Wesley Rast
Princeton Tora Taiko
Students of MUS 246
West and Central African music performance by Princeton University African Music Ensemble under the artistic direction of Olivier Tarpaga.
Free. Onsite registration required. Please arrive early to register.
Remote Ensemble and Steel Band: End-of-Semester Showcase
Program
REMOTE ENSEMBLE
Falling Flames by Finola Merivale
Protocol by Barak Nehoran
Selections from Go Placidly by Jason Treuting
and a new collaboration with African Music Director Olivier Tarpaga
STEEL BAND
Leave Me Alone by Calypso Rose, arr. by Kendall Williams
Bottle and Spoon (Me One Alone by Lord Invader) arr. by Kendall Williams
Orange Arrow by Jason Treuting (performed by Josh Quillen)
Original Compositions (eight original solo pan pieces by the students)
Event Info
See how students have pursued virtual collaborative music-making in this end-of-semester showcase! The video stream will remain available for free viewing following the premiere.
The Princeton Remote Ensemble is a groundbreaking new initiative formed in response to the pandemic. It is dedicated to probing the possibilities of remote musical collaboration by exploring music that allows for flexibility in instrumentation and realization.
Featuring students Allison Spann, Barak Nehoran, Claire Hu, Elie Svoll, Emily Liushen, Kimie Shen, Luca Morante, Naomi Farkas, and Zhaoran Chen. Directed by Eric Cha-Beach, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting of Sō Percussion, with guest help from African Music Director Olivier Tarpaga.
The Princeton University Steel Band is taught as a course that delves into the performance and history of the steel drum. For the first time, this course was taught remotely over the course of the fall semester.
Featuring students Byron Chin, Daisy Bissonette, Daniel Kim, Nicholas Jain, Nikhita Salgame, Sean Horton, Timothy Wei, and William Hefter. Directed by Josh Quillen and Kendall K. Williams.
"Taama": West African Music & Dance Performance
A West African music and dance performance by the Princeton University African Music Ensemble, under the artistic direction of master drummer Olivier Tarpaga, with students from MUS259: West African Mandé Drumming alongside internationally acclaimed guest artists.
Sixth International Symposium on the Music of Africa (SISMA)
The Department of Music at Princeton University will host its Sixth International Symposium on the Music of Africa (SISMA). Directed by Kofi Agawu, the event will feature a lecture-demonstration by master-musician, dancer and scholar, Dr. Habib Iddrisu of the University of Oregon, a keynote address by Professor Michael Veal of Yale University (to which Professor Bode Omojola of Mount Holyoke College will serve as respondent), and a performance by the Dafra Kura Band led by master-musician Olivier Tarpaga. All events are free and open to the public.
Registration: All SISMA events are free and open to the public, but you must register to be guaranteed a seat in Taplin Auditorium. To register, email Michelle Horgan (Conference & Event Services, Princeton University).
Program
1PM Lecture-Demonstration: "Ancestral Wisdom in Dagbon"
Habib Iddrisu, University of Oregon
Drummer, dancer, storyteller
2PM Keynote: "Chaos or Curvelinearity: Digital Architecture and Distortions of the Africanist Grid in the Late Music of John Coltrane"
Michael Veal, Yale University
Bode Omojola, respondent, Mount Holyoke and the Five Colleges
4:30PM Dafra Kura Band with the African Music Ensemble
Olivier Tarpaga, Director
Concert de Musique Sambla: Mamadou Diabate & Percussion Mania
Co-Sponsored by the Council of the Humanities, Department of Music and Program in African American Studies
Mamadou Diabate & Percussion Mania will perform traditional West African music. Mamadou Diabate is an award winning balafon master and composer born in Burkina Faso. He combines “Jeli” family music making with story telling of the Sambla peoples. This music is in fact the Sambla language translated into music. Unless you speak this language you cannot play this music!
About the Artist:
Mamadou Diabate was born into a traditional musician family (Sambla people) in Burkina Faso (West Africa), with a long tradition of practicing the profession of story telling and music making.
At the age of 5 he started his professional training with his father Penegue Diabate, who in his days was considered the best balafon player far beyond the bordes of the sambla culture. At 8 he began with his apprenticeship years with renowned balafonists of neighboring peoples.
In 1988 and 1998 he won the first prize of the "National Culture Week" of Burkina Faso.
He currently lives in Austria.
With his group Percussion Mania he won the Austrian World Music Award (2011) and the Grand Prix of the "Triangle du Balafon" Competition in Mali (2012). For his virtuosity, he was there also honored with the "Prix Alkaly Camara de la virtuosité".
In 2017 he was made Knight of the National Order (Chevalier de l'Ordre National) of Burkina Faso.
He has released 11 CDs with his own compositions and 2 others with authentic music of the Sambla and Tusia peoples (both world premiere).
In Burkina Faso, he had built a primary school where poor children are taught free of charge. (www.sababu.info)
African Drumming Ensemble Concert
The Princeton University African music performance student ensemble, directed by master drummer Olivier Tarpaga, presents music from West Africa in the group's first public appearance in the 2017-18 season.
A Discussion with Musicologist William Chapman Nyaho
The Musicology Colloquium series hosts renowned pianist and scholar Dr. William Chapman Nyaho.
Subject of discussion: In and Out of Africa: Advocating Art Music of Africa and Its Diaspora.
The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be provided. Dr. Nyaho will perform a lecture-recital in Taplin Auditorium later the same day.
About the Artist
William Chapman Nyaho, a Ghanaian American and resident of Seattle, studied at St. Peter's College, Oxford University (UK), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree at the Honour School of Music. He continued his piano studies at the Conservatoire de Musique de Geneve, Switzerland, the Eastman School of Music where he graduated with his Master of Music degree, and at the University of Texas at Austin, where he received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree. Chapman Nyaho is the recipient of prizes from international piano competitions.
Following four years as a North Carolina Visiting Artist, Chapman Nyaho taught at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and was the recipient of the Distinguished Professor Award and held the Heymann Endowed Professorship. He was also the recipient of the Acadiana Arts Council Distinguished Artist Award. Chapman Nyaho has also recently served as Visiting Professor of Music at Colby College in Maine and Visiting Artist at Willamette University in Oregon. His summer teaching appointments include Interlochen Summer Arts Camp and Adamant Music School.
As a regular guest clinician, Chapman Nyaho gives lecture-recitals and workshops advocating music by composers of the African heritage. He has compiled and edited a five-volume graded anthology Piano Music of Africa and the African Diaspora, published by Oxford University Press. A first of its kind, this is intended to expand the performing repertoire of students and concert pianists, and also to supplement college keyboard literature courses.
He has served on national committees for the Music Teachers' National Association, College Music Society and the National Endowment for the Arts and been a juror for competitions in the North America, Europe and Africa.
Chapman Nyaho's performances have taken him to Europe, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and North America, including Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center. He performs as soloist with various orchestras, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra. Chapman Nyaho has been featured on radio and television broadcasts in Ghana, Switzerland, and on Performance Today on NPR. He also developed and hosted The Bach Show for classical radio station KRVS in Louisiana. His piano duo, the Nyaho/Garcia Duo, has released the critically acclaimed CD Aaron Copland: Music For Two Pianos on the Centaur Label.
Music from Chapman Nyaho's solo CD SENKU: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent, a ground-breaking compilations of music of the African Diaspora, was recently choreographed by the Tony Award winning Garth Fagan. Senku was named one of the "Best of the Year" by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which called it "altogether enthralling . . . this music deserves a regular place on concert programs." Gramophone Magazine said, "Nyaho's gripping performances kept my ears glued to this disc . . . Let's hope the pianist continues to explore–and record–more such commanding repertoire." Dr. Maya Angelou wrote that it holds "moments of discovery so delicious that the listeners will be made to laugh out loud and to compliment not just Dr. Chapman Nyaho, but themselves at their good fortune in finding these composers and this pianist." Chapman Nyaho's most recent solo CD, ASA: Piano Music by Composers of African Descent, was released in Summer 2008 on the MSR Classics Label.