“Musician-in-Residence” Andre Mallinger; music to make you smile
Library’s popular summer program continues
Watching Andre Mallinger’s fingers working the keys of her “mbira” is like watching a career secretary work a computer keyboard. The action seems to require no thought, to be so natural, it’s automatic. Effortlessly, her hands move over the instrument’s metal strip keys, but rather than letters on a page, her fingers produce notes in the air. They pour out from the “deza” surrounding the mbira, giving it a “buzz” as they pass. The notes follow each other in ordered form passed down for centuries, but rather than marching along, these notes bounce, skipping and hop-dancing to an exotic rhythm. Malinger explained the music she played is from the Shona culture in Africa. It’s very complex, she said, with interlocking parts that produce a whole series of rhythms and melodies. There is brightness in the music. I couldn’t help smiling as I listened and I noticed Mallinger smiling as she played. This unfamiliar music was vibrant, rhythmic, joyous and when she stopped playing-well, I really didn’t want her to.
We were sitting in the atrium of the Community Center where I’d met Mallinger to talk about this summer’s “Musician-in-Residence” program at Gilpin County Public Library. The Friends of the Library have funded “Artist-in-Residence” programs for three summers, now, with a different genre of art featured each time. This year, they’re focusing on the art of music, choosing Mallinger to provide a summer’s worth of programs (free to those attending). As we talked, Mallinger had assembled her instrument, and then offered a spontaneous sample of its abilities. The mbira is a Zimbabwean instrument, a “thumb piano” with a keyboard of metal strips. The deza is the bowl surrounding it, traditionally made from a calabash gourd (Mallinger’s is made of fiberglass) that adds resonance, a vibration that hums beneath the melody. She plans to use this instrument, as well as others, in several workshops for participants to make their own music. But it’s just part of a broader program, a series of workshops that will include discussion, performance and activities-some geared to specific age groups and some suitable for all ages.
Mallinger brings more than 30 years of musical study and performance experience to Gilpin. She learned piano as a child then joined the school band and became a percussionist. “I wanted to be a rock ’n roll drummer,” she confessed. At eleven, she learned to play the marimba, dedicated to classical music. As an adult, she discovered the African style of marimba music and loves the rhythms of it. She’s since expanded to other instruments. Her education (M.A., Antrhopology, CU, Boulder) as an ethnomusicologist (a combination of cultural anthropology and music) plays well with her love of travel. A resident of Rollinsville, she’s just returned from a 17 month journey that included time spent in Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, India and Costa Rica. While in India, she studied classical Indian drumming (“I’m a percussionist at heart,” she says) and, in Laos, she played their style of xylophone, the “lanat.” Mallinger has performed in numerous bands and ensembles, incorporating classical, orchestral, Caribbean, jazz, Celtic, and several styles of African music. She’s taught all to marimba, piano and drum students, both privately and in schools, and has worked with all ages, including teaching at elementary and high schools, community colleges and, most recently (2002-2008), Mallinger was an adjunct faculty member at Naropa University in Boulder.
Mallinger has ideas to share many kinds of music in many different ways. Participants in this year’s Musician-in-Residence workshops will likely discover musical styles, forms and concepts that are new to them. Children love workshops tailored for them with rhythm games and physically playing the instruments. Seniors also enjoy playing the simple instruments and might find these workshops changing their way of thinking. Music is primal, Mallinger explained, it doesn’t matter if participants have no music background at all, music is “heart language.” She says she’s excited to learn from the participants and looking forward to getting to know the “greater Gilpin” population. She hopes people will come away from her programs with a new awareness of the concepts, styles and sounds of different types of music. Then they can decide for themselves which they like. Another goal is to help people feel that creative spark and let it take them wherever they want-even if that’s just singing for themselves, she said, “Maybe this will lead them to something new, as well.” Could be. Though you wouldn’t know it when you hear her play, African music was once new to Mallinger. Now it’s her favorite. “It touches my heart,” she says. Participants in these workshops may well find a style of music that touches their hearts, too.
Mallinger and Library Director Larry Grieco are finalizing the program schedule. The workshops will run June – August. Registration information, the schedule and titles of workshops will be published in the Weekly Register-Call as soon as they’re available. Meanwhile, listen to a sample at www.tobatanamarimba.org – the Crestfest links will let you see Mallinger in action. Just try to sit still while you listen.