Thursday, August 13, 2009
West African relief concert at Brotherhood Synagogue
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
On Wednesday July 22 Brotherhood Synagogue brought together a gathering of enthusiasts to hear African and local musicians perform a Village to Village concert, raising funds to connect kids to schools in Senegal and Liberia.
The project, sponsored by the African Center for Community Empowerment (ACCE), was founded in Queens nine years ago, in response to reports of gun violence taking youth lives (they also send classroom furniture to Africa when funds permit, and organize afterschool programs for African children in the US).
The chief organizer, Andy Teirstein, a composer and Associate Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, joined this effort while visiting a musician family in Thiaroye, Senegal, near Dakar, as part of the family’s homeschooling semester. Andy’s daughter Zoya, 14, tells that the grandmother Niama Kona Cissoko was taking care of 30 children, and was most concerned about the schooling of her extended family. If a child can go to school, it means an opportunity to get a job and provide for a family. Children who cannot get jobs, the vast majority of the villagers, end up in dire straits. School there costs $4 a month, and a donation of $48, buys a year of education. The Teirsteins’ objective is to raise enough money to send all the kids in the Cissoko family’s compound to school for five years.
Another party to the education effort, the family of Kolu Zigbi- Johnson, is helping a war-torn village, Goyazu in Liberia, raise $4,200 to build a schoolhouse. During the 15 years of civil war, beginning in 1989, the village was attacked several times, both grownups and children lost lives and the remainder fled to refugee camps, When the warlord Charles Taylor was exiled and peace restored, in 2006 the village’s traditional chief Charlie Crawford brought a small group of people back, to encourage restoring dwellings and resuming a normal life. Using the gifts from a birthday party they built houses, and today a dozen families, including over 30 children and two accredited schoolteachers, live there. A building to hold classes for “Charlie’s children” is a necessity.
The concert was a success, and the admissions fees collected from the benefit will go a long way towards the fulfillment of the sponsors’ objectives. Brotherhood Synagogue, thanks to its enthusiastic Rabbi Daniel Alder, successor to the late Dr. Irving J. Block who gave the temple its significant name, and to a forward-looking board and supportive membership, has over the years initiated a number of outreach programs, not only locally but also abroad, and the projects continue.
The amazing musical event, assembled by Andy Teirstein, brought together many cultures. Fide Sissoko, son of Niama, played the kora, a West African harp (related to the lute) and told stories. Grandson of the “King of Kora,” he keeps up the goiot, or troubadour, tradition of his family. Basya Schechter, music teacher at Brotherhood’s Hebrew School, a gifted composer and lyricist who sings with a pop group, Pharaoh’s Daughter, presented Mideastern, Greek and Israeli songs, playing the oud and guitar, accompanied by Youcouba Cissoko a kora player from Mali Another instrumentalist, Max ZT (stet), whom the Teirsteins met at Thiaroye, where he studied kora techniques, played the hammer dulcimer. To add to the multiculturalism, Andy (playing the fiddle) and daughter Zoya sang, in Celtic, his composition of summertime dreams.
As to foreign travel, Prof. Teirstein took a six-month sabbatical in the Spring of 2008, to provide a homestudy experience for Zoya and her brother Max, 10., driving through the American South and West, with flights to Africa and Mexico in between. Zoya’s filmed interview with Grandma Niama, an elegant Senegalese lady, became a high point of the presentations. Andy, while traveling, was also working on a CD, titled Open Crossings, to be published in late August by Naxos Records. Another activist from Brotherhood was teacher Rachel Ishofsky, associated with Heart of Africa, an NGO that provides Israeli agricultural and solar technology for West African villages.
The Liberian side was represented by the sponsor. Kolu Zigbi Johnson, Charlie Crawford’s daughter, who spoke of the village’s history and the children’s needs. The modest expenses of the schoolhouse were explained as cost of 50 4x8s and 25 2x4s at $3.50 each, zinc roofing for $1080, 4 doors and 4 windows and 100 bags of cement, and $300 of nails. Land clearing, adobe brick making and construction will be communal activities. Her large family and friends also cooked a slew of chicken, West African style (kosher, via 2nd Ave Deli), served alongside a Mediterranean / Eastern buffet (via Village Crown). The master of resources who facilitated and coordinated the entire occasion was Phillip Rothman, Executive Director of Brotherhood Synagogue, and the event paid for by enthusiastic supporters, both congregants and visitors.
On Wednesday July 22 Brotherhood Synagogue brought together a gathering of enthusiasts to hear African and local musicians perform a Village to Village concert, raising funds to connect kids to schools in Senegal and Liberia.
The project, sponsored by the African Center for Community Empowerment (ACCE), was founded in Queens nine years ago, in response to reports of gun violence taking youth lives (they also send classroom furniture to Africa when funds permit, and organize afterschool programs for African children in the US).
The chief organizer, Andy Teirstein, a composer and Associate Arts Professor at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, joined this effort while visiting a musician family in Thiaroye, Senegal, near Dakar, as part of the family’s homeschooling semester. Andy’s daughter Zoya, 14, tells that the grandmother Niama Kona Cissoko was taking care of 30 children, and was most concerned about the schooling of her extended family. If a child can go to school, it means an opportunity to get a job and provide for a family. Children who cannot get jobs, the vast majority of the villagers, end up in dire straits. School there costs $4 a month, and a donation of $48, buys a year of education. The Teirsteins’ objective is to raise enough money to send all the kids in the Cissoko family’s compound to school for five years.
Another party to the education effort, the family of Kolu Zigbi- Johnson, is helping a war-torn village, Goyazu in Liberia, raise $4,200 to build a schoolhouse. During the 15 years of civil war, beginning in 1989, the village was attacked several times, both grownups and children lost lives and the remainder fled to refugee camps, When the warlord Charles Taylor was exiled and peace restored, in 2006 the village’s traditional chief Charlie Crawford brought a small group of people back, to encourage restoring dwellings and resuming a normal life. Using the gifts from a birthday party they built houses, and today a dozen families, including over 30 children and two accredited schoolteachers, live there. A building to hold classes for “Charlie’s children” is a necessity.
The concert was a success, and the admissions fees collected from the benefit will go a long way towards the fulfillment of the sponsors’ objectives. Brotherhood Synagogue, thanks to its enthusiastic Rabbi Daniel Alder, successor to the late Dr. Irving J. Block who gave the temple its significant name, and to a forward-looking board and supportive membership, has over the years initiated a number of outreach programs, not only locally but also abroad, and the projects continue.
The amazing musical event, assembled by Andy Teirstein, brought together many cultures. Fide Sissoko, son of Niama, played the kora, a West African harp (related to the lute) and told stories. Grandson of the “King of Kora,” he keeps up the goiot, or troubadour, tradition of his family. Basya Schechter, music teacher at Brotherhood’s Hebrew School, a gifted composer and lyricist who sings with a pop group, Pharaoh’s Daughter, presented Mideastern, Greek and Israeli songs, playing the oud and guitar, accompanied by Youcouba Cissoko a kora player from Mali Another instrumentalist, Max ZT (stet), whom the Teirsteins met at Thiaroye, where he studied kora techniques, played the hammer dulcimer. To add to the multiculturalism, Andy (playing the fiddle) and daughter Zoya sang, in Celtic, his composition of summertime dreams.
As to foreign travel, Prof. Teirstein took a six-month sabbatical in the Spring of 2008, to provide a homestudy experience for Zoya and her brother Max, 10., driving through the American South and West, with flights to Africa and Mexico in between. Zoya’s filmed interview with Grandma Niama, an elegant Senegalese lady, became a high point of the presentations. Andy, while traveling, was also working on a CD, titled Open Crossings, to be published in late August by Naxos Records. Another activist from Brotherhood was teacher Rachel Ishofsky, associated with Heart of Africa, an NGO that provides Israeli agricultural and solar technology for West African villages.
The Liberian side was represented by the sponsor. Kolu Zigbi Johnson, Charlie Crawford’s daughter, who spoke of the village’s history and the children’s needs. The modest expenses of the schoolhouse were explained as cost of 50 4x8s and 25 2x4s at $3.50 each, zinc roofing for $1080, 4 doors and 4 windows and 100 bags of cement, and $300 of nails. Land clearing, adobe brick making and construction will be communal activities. Her large family and friends also cooked a slew of chicken, West African style (kosher, via 2nd Ave Deli), served alongside a Mediterranean / Eastern buffet (via Village Crown). The master of resources who facilitated and coordinated the entire occasion was Phillip Rothman, Executive Director of Brotherhood Synagogue, and the event paid for by enthusiastic supporters, both congregants and visitors.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:24 AM 
