BLOODDRUMSPIRIT ARTIST RESIDENCY AT LONG TRAIL SCHOOL

March 5, 2010—BloodDrumSpirit spent a jam-packed day with students and staff at Long Trail School on February 25. BloodDrumSpirit is a quartet of jazz and world music musicians (drum, piano, bass and saxophone) who have been performing together since 1981. Dr. Royal Hartigan, the group’s leader, is a tenured professor of world music at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and a Fulbright scholar. The quartet has a lot of experience leading workshops in West African drumming, song and dance; Indian time cycles, original rhythmic concepts and practice, African American music, and jazz history and styles. The musicians worked intensively with choral and instrumental students in two 80-minute workshops and performed a show for the entire school. Their residency was funded by the Creative Connections Arts Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation. For more information, contact Melissa Chesnut-Tangerman at Long Trail School at mchesnut-tangerman@longtrailschool.org or 867-5717 x215.