The school community is invited to attend the 3rd grade concert “Songs from Africa and the African Diaspora” on Wednesday, April 2 at 7 pm. In addition to the third graders, the “Ghana Bronyi” ensemble will also perform. The Ghana Bronyi Ensemble performs traditional music of Ghana, West Africa including songs and dances from many musical traditions accompanied by a variety of drums as well as xylophones, gourds, and bells. The ensemble is made up of undergraduate students from the University of Michigan who traveled to Cape Coast, Ghana in summer of 2007 with Dr. Carol Richardson, School of Music, Theatre and Dance, to study Ghanaian music/dance with Antoinette Kudoto and her Nyame Tseatse Cultural Group. Their 3-week musical journey included home stays with Cape Coast families and internships at a primary school in the village of Okyeso, where students spent each weekday morning teaching full classes in lessons they’d created in such areas as health, painting, story writing, Michigan geography, and English. The Ensemble performances spread the energy and joy of this music throughout Michigan while the proceeds support the education of girls in the village school as well as micro loans to our collaborators in the Nyame Tseatse Cultural Group in Cape Coast. There will be an open box donation at this concert to raise tuition for girls to attend school in Ghana; $200 pays for one year of tuition and 100% of monies raised by the group go directly to Ghana. Please contact Cynthia Page-Bogen, pageboge@aaps.k12.mi.us with any questions.