Sounding out of Africa

Sowah Mensah breaks into an easy smile several times during his hour-long rehearsal with Central Middle School's vocal chorus, Panthera Tigris. His beaming face softens his directions through the Ghanaian children's song "Sansaw Kroma."

Not harsh directions, but to-the-point instructions.

"You're not singing with confidence," he told them.

"Don't rush on the last word. You're rushing,"

"You have to hold it stronger. You have to think about your pitch."

He ends it with that smile, though. "Good, really good," he tells them in his thick accent.

Mensah's voice has the sound of his home country, Ghana, even after living in the United States for 19 years.

The music Mensah and the students will be performing tonight at Academic Auditorium and Saturday at Indian Park is also from Ghana.

The school's instrumental group, Shere Khan, and percussion group, Bengal Beat, also will be performing at the concerts.

Students from Central Middle School are turning into temporary African musicians because of a $4,000 Arts in the Curriculum grant from the Missouri Arts Council.

Music teacher Pat Dumey, fifth-grade teacher Laura Green and art teacher Beth Thomas worked on the grant together to create a project designed to bring music, art and creative writing together.

In March, eight students worked on making African masks, and then other students wrote stories based on the masks. The stories and masks will be part of concerts today and Saturday.

In addition to these two shows, the students will take the show, without Mensah, on a short concert tour to Memphis, Tenn., on May 6 and 7.

Saturday's concert in Indian Park is sponsored by the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri and is part of its "Concerts in the Park" series, which started last year when an anonymous donor presented the arts council with money to spend on community concerts.

The donor told the arts council he would like to see an ethnic music act perform at Indian Park, and a few weeks later Dumey called arts council executive director Becky Fulgham about Mensah coming to Cape Girardeau.

Fulgham realized Mensah's program would fit the donor's request perfectly, and the arts council paid to have him stay in Cape Girardeau an extra day.

"There's just so many pluses," Fulgham said of the concert. "It is an ethnic performance with music you don't normally hear, and the program is being brought to the people."

For the students, Mensah's visit has meant a great opportunity and a great deal of work.

Although the students have been studying West African music with Dumey since January, they only started rehearsing with Mensah on Monday.

On Tuesday they rehearsed "Sansaw Kroma," which means "the hawk" in the Twi language. Dumey already taught her students part of this song before Mensah's arrival, and he taught them the rest of it. Mensah also taught them the "Sailor Song," which is sung in the Ga language.

"We have about 40 languages in Ghana," Mensah said.

He said the language difference should not cause a problem while singing the songs.

"Everyone can learn a song in any language," he said.

Mensah has taught music for 30 years and currently works in St. Paul, Minn., as a music professor at the University of St. Thomas and Macalester College, where he is also the director of the school's African Music Ensemble.

While he usually teaches college students, Mensah said working with younger students provides "a way of sharing my music with people who may not know anything about my culture."

He also said it is easier to teach them the music.

"Kids are better learners than adults. Everything is new to them, they are constantly running into new things and are more willing to do what you ask them to do," he said. "Sometimes the attitude of knowing gets in the way of adults."

kalfisi@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182