Music Tent
The Music Tent at Africa Day Dublin featured intimate workshops exploring African music and musical styles. The Music Tent also offered visitors to the event an opportunity to meet some of the Main Stage performers and discuss their music and musical influences with them.
The schedule for the Music Tent was as follows:
12.30-1.30pm: Afro-Cuban Rhythms - with Conor Guilfoyle and Special Guests
This workshop demonstrated and broke down the rhythms of Cuba and explored how the country's African heritage has impacted on its music. It covered topics ranging from the basics of clave to the rhythms of the congas, bongos and timbales.
Presented by Conor Guilfoyle, the workshop showed how Afro-Cuban rhythms combine to make some of the most sophisticated yet danceable music on the planet. Conor was joined by Cuban music specialist Eddie McGinn and Cuban vocalist / percussionist Tony Oscar, in what was an informative and entertaining workshop.
About Conor Guilfoyle
Conor Guilfoyle began playing drums at age 13. At 17, he was working with many of the leading players on the Irish jazz scene. In 1983, he went to study at Drummers Collective in New York, where his teachers included Michael Carvin, Horacee Arnold and Frank Malabe. From there, he won a scholarship to the prestigious jazz programme at the Banff College of Fine Arts in Canada, directed by bassist Dave Holland.
On his return to Ireland, Conor quickly established himself as one of the most in-demand drummers in Europe. He has extensive playing and recording credits with internationally-renowned musicians. On the home-front, he is a member of several groups, including the innovative Guilfoyle / Neilsen trio.
His studies with the late Frank Malabe in New York gave Conor a love of Afro-Cuban music, and he currently directs three Latin groups: the ‘Havana 'che’ and ‘Havana Son’ Cuban salsa / Son bands, and ‘A Night in Havana’, a Latin jazz big band. He is a member of Pucho and his Latin Soul Brothers European touring band, and has also toured with Cuban trumpeter Bobby Carcasses.
Conor is a co-founder of the jazz programme at Newpark Music Centre in Blackrock, Co. Dublin. He has been expanding the rhythmic language of jazz with his application of odd metres to the standard jazz repertoire and the use of the Afro-Cuban concept of clave applied to different time signatures. These innovations have led to an international demand for his teaching.
He has lectured in many leading colleges worldwide, and is the author of ‘Odd Meter Clave’ and ‘Rhythmic Reading For Drummers’, both published by Advance Music. Further information on Conor's career as a performer and an educator is available at www.conorguilfoyle.com.
1.30-2pm: Family Drumming Session - with Discovery Gospel Choir 
Discovery Gospel Choir – who performed on the Main Stage at Africa Day Dublin – also hosted a family-based, interactive drumming and rhythm workshop in the Music Tent.
In many parts of Africa, rhythm is considered as important, if not more important, than melody. A single drum beat can often be defined as music and can be danced to. This importance of rhythm has given rise to rich drumming traditions all over the African continent.
Two members of Discovery Gospel Choir, who are very talented and experienced West African drummers – Gabriel Akujobi and Bode Popoola – facilitated this workshop, along with Róisín Dexter, Musical Director of the Choir.
About Discovery Gospel Choir
Formed in 2004, Discovery Gospel Choir was Ireland’s first integrated Gospel choir. Its members hail from all over the world, including Ireland, Botswana, Cameroon, Congo-Brazzaville, China, England, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda.
The choir has a strong ethos of reconciliation, development and integration and has campaigned for ‘Make Poverty History’. In 2008, Discovery Gospel Choir featured on the anti-racism single, ‘We People (Who are Darker than Blue)’ by Sinead O’Connor and the Republic of Loose. For further information, check out click here.
2.45-3.30pm: Insight into Griot Culture - with Solo Cissokho
Solo Cissokho is a seventh-generation kora-player from Casamance in Southern Senegal, and a troubadour of the unique music and culture of the griots (a griot is a West African poet, praise singer, and wandering musician, considered a repository of oral tradition).
Griot culture was at the heart of the mighty Manding empire that once ruled most of West Africa. Today, the griot continues to play a central role in the life of communities in West Africa, and - in this workshop - Solo shed light on this fascinating and vibrant culture, which embraces, poetry, music, praise-singing and healing.
3.45-4.45pm: African Guitar Styles – with Niwel Tsumbu and Dave Flynn
In this workshop, Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu demonstrated some of the various guitar styles of Central Africa, with a particular emphasis on the rumba and soukous styles of his homeland. These styles blend intricate poly-rhythmic finger-picking styles with beautiful melodic sequences to create some of the most breath-taking guitar music on the planet.
Niwel was joined by Irish guitarist Dave Flynn and, together, they demonstrated how other African guitar styles – like Zimbabwean chumurenga and Malian desert blues – can be blended with traditional Irish rhythms and melodies through their rhythmic and melodic links.
About Niwel Tsumbu
Since his arrival in Ireland from the Congo in 2004, Niwel has developed an enviable reputation as an elegant and fluent guitarist, vocalist and composer. His ability to vividly blend African rhythms, rumba, new jazz, classical flamenco and more has gained him ardent admirers all over Ireland. Raised on the traditional Soukous and Rumba music of his homeland, he began playing from an early age and went on to study both jazz and classical guitar - enrolling secretly in a classical music school where he also studied saxophone for a year.
The leader of several bands, including Song of the Nations, Sumu, Motema and Jazmu - all of whom have played at many festivals around Ireland, including the Dun Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures, the Bray Jazz Festival and Limerick Global Beats Festival - Niwel is truly a musical innovator.
Playing electric and acoustic guitars and singing mostly in his native Lingala, Niwel performs a range of music that stretches from contemporary versions of Congolese traditional music from the 1930s and 1940s to modern jazz.
About Dave Flynn
Originally from Dublin and now based in Spiddal, Dave started out as a rock guitarist before studying classical guitar with John Feeley. He was later awarded a Masters Degree in composition at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Since then, Dave has gone on to earn himself an international reputation as a composer and guitarist. He is particularly noted for his innovative compositions which fuse elements from traditional Irish music with other styles, including contemporary classical and African music.
These compositions have been performed internationally by artists including Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, the Prague Chamber Orchestra, the Smith Quartet and the Dublin Guitar Quartet, of whom he was a founding member. As a guitarist, Dave is equally at home playing traditional Irish, classical and popular music styles.
His affection for African music was hinted at on his debut album ‘Draíocht’ which fused elements of African music with Irish music and jazz. His unique approach to playing traditional Irish music on guitar is demonstrated on his most recent release on Frisbee Records, ‘Contemporary Traditional Irish Guitar’.