Chiwalala Doctoral Ceremony

The following is a press release from the Sibelius Academy website (http://siba.fi/fi/?id=32402):

The public examination of Artist Arnold Chiwalala´s demonstration of proficiency for the Doctor of Music degree will take place on Monday, November 9, 2009 at 11.00 a.m. in Chamber Music Hall, Sibelius Academy, Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 9, Helsinki.


Title of Arnold Chiwalala´s demonstration of proficiency: Holistic and Intercultural Artistry

Title of the written work: Chizentele: My Path to Original Artistry and Creative Fusion of Ngoma with Finnish Folk Music and Dance

The statement on the demonstration of proficiency will be presented by the Chair of the Board of Examiners PhD, Ass.Prof. Alfonso Padilla. Statements on the written work will be presented by Professor David Hebert and Professor Hannu Saha. The Custos of the examination is Professor Vesa Kurkela.

The combined experience of living in two cultures, Tanzanian and Finnish, has played a part in Arnold Chiwalala´s creativity which led him to undertake this doctoral degree. He came to Finland already equipped with his artistic skills and education from home, but experiencing a new environment and a different culture has developed him as an artist. It has broadened his perspective on creativity and it has broadened his artistic imagination. Here in Finland he discovered the kantele. With this instrument, he has invented a concrete new style of music to which he has given the name Chizentele, and established a two-piece band, PolePole, to play this style. He has performed this new style Chizentele in all of his doctoral recitals. Added to that he has developed different ways for creating intercultural fusion of music, dance and songs.

The skills and knowledge that Arnold Chiwalala inherited from his parents and obtained from other sources - from school, society, the Bagamoyo College of Arts in Tanzania, the Department of Folk Music at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, various experiences of living in a different culture, the experience of working with other artists, and observations of other people´s work - have given him the capacity as an artist to see and do things as a whole, especially while he is creating his art. In this document he will explain how he arrived at this holistic conception of artistry through cross-cultural experience.

Arnold Chiwalala is a Tanzanian musician, dancer, singer, choreographer, composer, song writer and a Teacher. He was born in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, in 1963. He was chosen to join the Bagamoyo College of Arts, Tanzania, in 1981. Arnold has worked as teacher and performing artist in the Bagamoyo College of Arts since 1985. Besides teaching he has been involved in various dance, music and theatre projects and performed in Africa, Europe and in the USA. Trip in November 1987 to Finland connected him with the country. Since 1989 he has traveled widely in the country to teach, give lectures and workshops in schools and in tertiary education such as Sibelius Academy, Theatre Academy, University of Helsinki and University of Tampere. He has also taught professionals in performing arts, school teachers and amateurs as well as worked with handicapped children and prisoners. As an artist he has collaborated with Finnish artists in various music, dance and theater projects, including Opera. Added to that, Arnold has performed for TV and his artistry works have been featured in Radio programs. In 2000 Yle TV 1 made a documentary film called “Musta Väinämöinen” about Arnold Chiwalala.

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It was a great pleasure to mentor Dr. Arnold Chiwalala in developing the final document of his doctoral thesis, along with co-examiner Hannu Saha at Sibelius Academy. Dr. Alfonso Padilla (University of Helsinki) and Heikki Laitinen (Emeritus Professor, Sibelius Academy) did an outstanding job guiding and evaluating Dr. Chiwalala in his artistic work across several years of studies.


Also, I am pleased to report that the Finland Ministry of Foreign Affairs is now sending 10 copies of Dr. Chiwalala's thesis to its embassies in Africa.

Classics at the White House

President Obama and family have just hosted their first concert of classical music at the White House.

Here is a link to a related article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/arts/music/05concert.html

According to the above article . . . “Asked after the workshop whether the Obamas’ gesture in celebrating classical music at the White House will help demystify the art form and bring it needed attention, Ms. Weilerstein said, ‘If that doesn’t do it, I don’t know what does.’”

RIP Claude Levi-Strauss

Anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss (b. 1908) has just passed away. Author of The Raw and the Cooked and other influential books, his ideas have had a considerable impact on how social scientists conceive of music in culture.

Announcement:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8340936.stm

Link to an article on Levi-Strauss and music:

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/01/arts/classical-view-how-music-spins-a-web-of-meaning.html

LEVI-STRAUSS QUOTATIONS:

On music in human life:

“Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.”

On scholarship:

“The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.”

On the place of Europe in the world:

“Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.”

On the relations between historiography and social science:

“The anthropologist respects history, but he does not accord it a special value. He conceives it as a study complementary to his own: one of them unfurls the range of human societies in time, the other in space.”

New Music Programme Launch at Womex

Today I am at the enormous Womex event in Copenhagen, Denmark (and nearby Malmo, Sweden) for the official launch of the Glomus Network and its affiliated Master of Global Music Program. These highly innovative new developments promise to open up unprecedented opportunities for all kinds of musical studies in Northern Europe, including especially the music of Africa and the Middle East, as well as creative work in intercultural hybrid forms. It has been exciting to play such an active role in the planning of these new initiatives which may broaden the landscape of music in European higher education.

Choral Concert by Kampin Laulu

MERI (The Sea)
Kampin Laulu Chamber Choir
Cafe Jugend, Pohjoisesplanadi 19, Helsinki, Finland.
Saturday, 7^th of November, 2009, at 4pm.
Tickets: 8.00-12.00 EUR

The sea will serve as the theme for the Kampin Laulu Chamber Choir's upcoming concert, featuring both old and new chamber choir music, mostly by Nordic composers:
Kuula - Nevanlinna - Segerstam - Vainio - Vidjeskog - Whitacre.
Conductor: Eric-Olof Söderström.

I sing the lowest bass parts with the choir. Here is a link to their website:

http://www.kampinlaulu.fi/en/

Two European Doctorates in Music

Two of the doctoral students I have been advising are nearly complete with the revisions to their theses, and will soon be giving their final doctoral presentations and graduating from the Sibelius Academy, in Helsinki, Finland:

-Tapani Heikinheimo (completion on 15 November 2009, Sibelius Academy): Intensity of Interaction in Instrumental Music Lessons (co-supervisor)

-Arnold Chiwalala (completion on 9 November 2009, Sibelius Academy): Chizentele: My Path to Original Artistry and Creative Fusion of Ngoma with Finnish Folk Music and Dance (co-supervisor)

Tapani Heikinheimo is the student with whom I have worked the most since coming to Sibelius Academy more than one year ago. His study offers new insights into the dynamic process of teaching and learning in one-to-one instrumental music lessons. Tapani’s other supervisors are activity theory expert Ritva Engestrom and music education philosopher Heidi Westerlund.

Arnold Chiwalala is a unique musician who has written an autobiographical and reflective thesis on his own artistic development as a renowned Tanzanian-Finnish songwriter, musician, and intercultural performing artist. His study offers new insights into issues in intercultural artistic development. Chiwalala’s other examiner is Finnish folk music expert Hannu Saha, and committee members include Heikki Laitinen and Alfonso Padilla.

It has been a great pleasure to work with such outstanding musicians and scholars, and I am certain both Tapani and Arnold will continue to make a difference in the field of music.

Music and Youth

Today, at 28 years old, Gustavo Dudamel debuted as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, one of the world's great symphony orchestras. The story of Dudamel's musical upbringing, now widely known, demonstrates that new opportunities have emerged in the traditional field of European classical art music, and that age and nationality are increasingly viewed as unreliable indicators of ability at even the highest levels of musical leadership.

Dudamel’s visionary work in Venezuela with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra has also demonstrated the positive outcomes of national programs for community music education in economically challenged circumstances.

Links:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-et-dudamel-color4-2009oct04,0,3386151.story

http://www.gustavodudamel.com/

Here is a video clip of Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra: