Beyond the Classroom

1. Sona Jobarteh - The Gambia Academy 

    As we spoke about Sona Jobarteh the other day in class, I found all that she has done very fascinating. Some of her background again was that she was born in London and first started playing the kora at the age of three. After years of learning from her brother it was until she was eighteen, she realized she wanted to make this something more serious. Now Sona is known as the first professional women kora player from one of the five principal kora playing griot families from West Africa.

    As also mentioned in class she created The Gambia Academy in 2015 to educate young Africans in their culture, traditions, history and overall academic education. Sona emphasizes in this article I found Sona Jobarteh is Performing in The Gambia on March 4  - The Point "Education is key to changing mindsets and enabling the journey to self-determination and economic self-sustainability". With the population of the students growing at The Gambia Academy a bigger campus was created by Sona. She purchased 50 hectares of land and doing so will now allow the expansion to support 300 students and even launch the Academy's Senior Department. In total there are going to be twelve new buildings and each building being dedicated to a specific department as some are listed down below.

- Junior Department (Main Block)

- Music Department Block

- Drama and Film Department Block

- Art Department Block

- Training Centre

Senior Department

- Convert Hall

- Library

- Recording Studio

    You can read more about these departments at The New Campus (thegambiaacademy.org)!

    I just find her doing all of this for the kids in Gambia to be absolutely amazing and these kids will forever remember Sona and be so grateful for her actions by growing the community and expanding the traditions instead of letting them fade away. 

2. Sharon Burch

    Last section we talked about was Native American Music and when doing so we went over what "syncretic music" was. (And just a little reminder if you don't remember it is the combining of different beliefs and various schools of thought) As doing so in this section we heard a song from Sharon Burch called "Mother Earth" (down below) 

    While listening to her song in class it was obviously a lot different compared to other songs, we listened to. Sharon Burch preserves her music through the Navajo Traditions of New Mexico and embraces traditional Navajo prayers, chants and songs. Her music is a very contemporary expression, and her songs capture the sacredness of mother earth, father sun and the importance of family as stated in this article Sharon Burch Songs, Albums, Reviews, Bio & More | AllMusic

    I sadly could not find as much as I wanted to about Sharon Burch, but I did want to show how her music was a lot different and calmer. Down below I'll be putting some other songs of hers!

"Sacred Mountains"

"The Rain Song" - as you can hear the shaker in the back, she still includes the traditional instruments as well!

3. Charango

    Lastly, I picked the charango to go more into detail about. After seeing the back of the charango in class I thought it was pretty interesting and was not expecting the back of it to be an armadillo shell.

    The charango is a small ten-string Andean musical instrument originated from South America in the 1700s. It came from the Spaniards arriving in South America along with brining the vihuela (another tiny guitar). The native South Americans loved the vihuela but did not having the technology to shape the wood, so they had to use armadillo shells which ended up evolving the charango. The name charango is not yet identified but it is said it possibly came from the people who played the instruments who were known as charangoes as stated in this article online Charango: Icon Of Andean Music From South America (middermusic.com)

Charangoes have five pairs of strings, made out of metal wound and nylon

Down below is a video of someone playing the charango

Here is another short video showing different types of charangoes 

    

    A cool fact I found on this website (Charango | Bullock Texas State History Museum (thestoryoftexas.com) was that currently today quirquincho armadillos is now an endangered species. Now in South America charangoes are no longer made with armadillo shells and are now made with wood! Which is good to hear!