Pan-African Youth Orchestra concert this Saturday!

Musical instructor Carol Palms learned a lesson from kids in Ghana ... they are the same everywhere you go!

During the month of February, Riverfolk Music & Arts Organization has been engaging the community in viewing and responding to video clips posted on social media and the Manchester Mirror featuring the Pan African Youth Orchestra (PAYO). This Saturday, Feb. 27, at 7:30 pm, will be the Premiere Video Presentation, recorded in Accra, Ghana on Feb. 20. The concert will be presented via Crowdcast (link at end of article).

You are invited to be a part of Riverfolk's Culture Creations Project by submitting your own art, music, or essay that has been inspired by viewing or listening to PAYO's music. A committee will select entries to be presented the night of the concert presentation. All entries will become a part of a published compilation that will be presented to PAYO in honor of their contributions to the Manchester community.

How did Manchester get connected with such a diverse group of musicians from halfway across the globe? Carol Palms shares the story:

In 2006 and 2007, Riverfolk founder Mark Palms was contacted by Ghanaian musician, Kofi Ameyaw (an alumnus of the PAYO) to help him record his gyil (African xylophone) music in Mark's home studio. Kofi had traveled extensively with PAYO, and eventually came to USA to perform here and teach at EMU. His band, Sunkwa, performed at the Riverfolk Festival, and in the summer of 2008, Kofi took Mark to Ghana, where they visited his family and recorded authentic tribal music in a number of villages.

In 2013, Mark and Kofi recorded another CD together, titled, “À l’Afrique”. Inspired by the African village music, they combined Mark's banjo (which is originally an African instrument) with brass musicians in New Orleans and with Detroit guitarist and Manchester native Matt Callaway.

Through Kofi, Mark and Carol met Kweku Kwakye, PAYO Director. Kweku invited Kofi, his wife Ai Yumiba (also a music teacher), Mark and Carol to come to Accra, Ghana to work with his students in the summer of 2015. They were interested in giving the PAYO musicians some instruction in what we would call “classical” music theory, including reading manuscript. Those students learn their music completely by rote instruction. They listen, watch, and copy their instructors, putting their parts together without any printed music.

"I had just retired from teaching music the year before," Carol says. "Of course, I thought I had a lot to teach them! Instead, I found myself in awe of their talent and discipline. The kids were great ... no different than the fun-loving, curious, and talented children I’d spent my career teaching.

"We stayed in Kweku’s home, where the rehearsals took place out in the yard in the late afternoons. The kids would walk from their homes around the neighborhood in Accra."

Carol assumed that all African children were familiar with the traditional music that is being learned in the PAYO, but found out she was quite wrong. "Kids all over the world listen to the very same pop music our American kids listen to — rap, hip-hop, and country. It’s mass-produced and distributed everywhere. The purpose of the PAYO is to bring a cultural awareness of this traditional African music to its own people!" she says.

One thing she learned during their travels, was what being in the minority was like. "In Ghana, I finally got to experience being the minority!" she says. "I highly recommend it to anyone. Not to be preachy, but what a valuable experience that is!"

After Mark and Carol returned home, they set to work arranging for the PAYO to come to the US. "We found school orchestras and youth choirs here that wanted to collaborate in workshops and performances. An international music festival in New Orleans was ready to feature them on their main stage. I can remember that festival director telling us, 'Just see that you get them here.' Of course we will! How hard could that be?"

In her international travel, (despite being a minority) Carol relates, she had never been told she couldn’t do whatever she wished to do — "Passports, visas ... just follow the procedures, wait a bit, pay the fees, and you get what you’ve asked for ... Not so if you live in another country. Obtaining their visas to travel here was next to impossible."

However, what seemed impossible under "normal" circumstances, managed to come true in a different way under "abnormal" circumstances. When, due to COVID, artists across the globe were no longer able to provide music in front of live audiences, the internet — and Riverfolk — managed to bring the PAYO "here" via live stream last summer as a replacement for a Gazebo Concert when the series needed to be cancelled.

And now, a return engagement for this weekend's "Blacksmith Shop" concert series, will feature PAYO's amazing sounds once more.

The diversity among the Riverfolk board has also been an interesting touchpoint during the past several months, providing the organization with a wider variety of perspectives as well as musical sounds. Andrea Cecconie is from Brazil; Rowena Villarias is from the Phillipines and has also traveled extensively throughout her lifetime; Aileen Rohwer's family comes from Puerto Rico, but she was raised in Argentina, where she went to a highly multi-cultural school with other children from around the world. "Hearing the music and seeing the art of other cultures helps me understand them, empathize with them, and want to learn more about the people," Rohwer adds.

Elaine Osterbur, whose husband is a retired minister, has lived in five different areas of the country and traveled to most every state in the US, as well as Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, France, Czech Republic, Canada, Israel, and Palestine. ("And there are many more on our bucket lists!" she adds.)

For this week's musical clip, "The Journey: Reactions" visit the Riverfolk Facebook Page at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsHEQ-QoQ_85X7r8DisSieTLHZFfVJ7bB. To join Saturday night's Crowdcast concert, reserve your spot now at https://www.crowdcast.io/e/blacksmith-shop-concerts-9.

For as little as $1 a month, you can keep Manchester-focused news coverage alive.

by Marsha Chartrand

Marsha Johnson Chartrand, a founder, writer, and copy editor with the Manchester Mirror, is a 50-year resident of Manchester. She has a long history of volunteer and community involvement.