24 May 2009

Musical Listen-and-Learn with Zimbabwe Nkenya

Here's a picture of Matthew, Terra, and the kids (seated dead center) enjoying the Mbira music of Zimbabwe Nkenya at the St. Louis Art Museum.

The performance was done in conjunction with the museum's African Arts Festival, and was a pure delight. Prior to the performance the kids were invited to make hand-held shakers, like maracas without handles. Of course they still had them in their hands when the performance began, and Nkenya was visibly pleased when his performance was punctuated with enthusiastic shake-a shakes from the kids surrounding him.

You can see one very simple Mbira that Matthew bought in Nairobi in this post from my old Beirut blog--it's shown in the picture; number 2.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Fun! Joe and I were there for a short visit that weekend as well. He unintentionally set off the "do not cross the line" alarm in front of Gerhard Richter's Gray Mirror as he was looking too closely after I mentioned that the material would make for a nice backspash in the kitchen. It was pretty funny.

Mary Ann said...

That's awesome. Isn't he great?