Internationally renowned artist, Oumou Sangare, visited our school on December 18, 2006 for a cultural and musical exchange.

The students could barely focus on the lesson on Thursday, December 14, 2006. A half-hour later there was a stir in the back of the room. “They’re here!” “She’s here!” The students in the back had caught a glimpse of her through the window in the rear door. Seconds later Oumou Sangare, internationally known Wasoulou singer from Mali, had entered the classroom. She was accompanied by her band, an interpreter, and a representative from the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall. The students from Mrs. Santoro’s two tenth grade classes were participating in the Institute’s Global Encounters program and this particular class was lucky enough to receive a visit from Ms. Sangare and her band in their classroom.

The energy in the room that afternoon was electric. Oumou sang, her band played, her dancers danced, and several students and their teacher joined in. Ms. Sangare spoke to the class through the interpreter and took questions. The musicians were introduced and showed their instruments, what they were made of, how they each sounded alone. And then played all together again. The bell rang ending the school day and students and teachers from other classes piled up at the classroom doors. Even Mrs. Zucker, the principal, joined in the dancing.

The following Tuesday, December 19, Mrs. Santoro’s two classes took the subway to Carnegie Hall for a long-distance learning event. They sat in Zankel Hall and watched Oumou Sangare perform with her full band. Simultaneously, through a satellite connection and video-conferencing technology, they watched Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Experience of Louisiana performing for high school students in Mali and watched the Malian students watching them! At the end of the concerts, MHSIS student, Julian Ferretti, was among a group of students who had an opportunity to speak directly with a Malian student.

In the Spring term, Mrs. Santoro’s classes will learn about Malian music and the ways in which it is an expression of the history, culture, and politics of Mali. They will listen to different types of Malian music expressed in a variety of instruments and learn the origin of those instruments and how cultural diffusion affected the type of instruments and the music that is Mali. The unit of study will culminate in another concert in May by Neba Solo and his balafon, an African xylophone, also performing with his band and dancers.