Embe Marimba Band
Evergreen Community Charter School’s “Embe Marimba Band” is not your usual middle school band. This group of eleven to fourteen year-olds from Evergreen's Middle School perform primarily on handmade Zimbabwean style marimbas, as well as a variety of other percussion instruments. “Embe”, a Swahili word for mango, dishes out sweet and juicy tunes in a variety of styles. Director, Sue Ford, a multi-instrumentalist and music teacher at Evergreen, used to be part of a professional marimba band comprised of members of her family who made the instruments that the Embe band currently use.
They have been fortunate to learn from and play with high-porfile musisicans including the Firecracker Jazz Band's Je Widenhouse, Kevin Meyame of Aftromotive, Billy Jonas, Ronnie Delerme, and River Guerguerian. |
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The band has gained notoriety over the last couple of years performing in the community at events such as LEAF Festival in Black Mountain, the Asheville Bravo Event “Art in the Garden”, Dream a Better Dream’s 28 County Initiative Conference, Family Fun Day, and Asheville Rotary Club events.
Embe Marimba Band has successfully wrapped up a very busy spring schedule, rocking out for audiences far and wide. Embe Marimba Band has successfully wrapped up a very busy spring schedule, rocking out for audiences far and wide.
In March, we performed at Isacc Dickson Elementary for the Seth's Playground CD Release Party. The CD "Seth's Playground" was created to honor Seth Olson, son of Susan Schillcock, a long time teacher mentor for Evergreen. Photos were featured at Citizen-Times.com in March.
In April, we celebrated Earth Day/Grandparent's Day, with a whole school musical performance.
In May, we were the featured entertainers at UNC-A's Accountancy Association Alumni Banquet.
Also we performed at LEAF in Black Mountain with guest artists Billy Jonas, River Guerguerian, Ronnie Delerme and Je Widenhouse. See photos here.
Embe Marimba Band went on the road June 1-3, packing all of the instruments in our biodiesel bus for the entire weekend.
On Friday, we performed at the Congregation Beth HaTephila for Xandy Chelmis' bar mitzvah. On Saturday, we performed with the chorus, the jam band and the 2nd grade at the Annual Graduation and Moving Up Ceremony. Then on Sunday we wowed them at the Asheville Music Jamboree to a cheering audience of approximately 1000 people, giving our graduating members the final "rock star experience."
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