African music pulses in Edmonton Saturday

Once again the Edmonton Metropolitan Chorus highlights the rhythmic pulse of Africa in its many forms this coming Saturday at McDougall United Church.

Journeys from Africa is the third concert the 100-member choir will have sung celebrating the pain and jubilation of Africa’s culture and heritage.

Founder and music director David Garber has loaded the one-hour repertoire with rarely heard gems that reveal how African rhythms were integrated in different western aboriginal and European cultures.

“We start in Ghana with the Africans taken into slavery and we experience with them the influences they brought to the North, South and Central Americas. We stop at Cuba, Haiti, Brazil and North America before we head back to South Africa,” says Garber, a former music teacher at both Sir George Simpson and W.D. Cuts schools in St. Albert.

For the choir, singing in six languages appears daunting – Ghanaian, Spanish, Creole French, Portuguese, English and Zulu. “No wonder they’re going crazy,” Garber laughs and then breaks into an explanation. “A great deal of African music is call and response. There is a lot of repetition of text. It’s not like a big sonnet. What is important is the energy and emotion.”

And this is one concert that will certainly be an emotional journey for the audience. “The story the slaves went through is worth telling and reminding people of the incredible inhumanity and hardship they were forced to go through.”

Garber has also invited the renowned Wajjo Drummers to perform along with Anna Beaumont, a soloist with a strong interest in world music. She’ll sing the Cuban love song Las Quattro Palomas and the sassy Negro Bem Bon, a tune about a vain, self-absorbed stud that treats his women badly.

She also sings the celebratory Haitian Fre O, a song about an entire community lifting the spirit of a sick member through song and dance, and the lively Gede Nibo. “It’s my favourite song. It’s just crazy with wonderful rhythms and wonderful musical elements. In the song, people talk about coming together, singing, dancing and drumming. There’s not a great philosophical message, but it expresses many joyful elements. I love it,” Garber says.

Since the early 1500s when slaves were imported to work America’s plantations, there has been a profound musical evolution. Just by taking snippets from different countries, it is difficult to separate the differing threads.

“But they have one common element — a deep sense of community connection with each other and ultimately with the earth.”