UMPI features African music

On Saturday, April 28, the residents of Presque Isle will have the golden opportunity to experience the colorful, extraordinary, superb performance of Toby Foyeh and Orchestra Africa. They will be at the University of Maine at Presque Isle performing their masterful blend of traditional African music, songs, rythms, melodious jazz and titillating rock, harmonizing and erupting with joy and excitement.
   Toby Foyeh, who is the founder and leader of the orchestra, has been performing around the world for several years bringing his genre of world music he calls “AFRIJAM” to music lovers all over, in the process generating and receiving great critical reviews and acclaim. The orchestra features Toby Foyeh on guitar and flute, a bass player, a drummer, keyboards, a host of percussionists with colorful and gyrating female dancers whose rhythmic and joyful traditional African dance adds a special exotic quality, beauty and happiness to the whole experience. The orchestra, adorned in their African costumes, depict a scene f an African royal court music group in action.
The instrumentation of the orchestra is an inter-mix of Western and African instruments. The guitar, bass, keyboards and trap-set drums are used stylistically to create and interpret African melodies and rhythms criss-crossing with African drums like the Yoruba talking drums and Bata drums; other African percussion instruments like Sakara, cowbell etc. are used to create an interlocking and highly charged polyrhythmic sound which brings joy to the heart, happiness to the soul, and dance to the feet.
The band has a new CD “LAGOS ILU-EKO” currently out. The CD captures life in Lagos, African’s populous city, with its social and cultural traditions.
Do not miss Toby Foyeh and Orchestra African at University of Maine on Saturday April 28, show time is 7:30 p.m. at the Campus Center. Tickets: general admission $10, students $5. Students at UMPI, NMCC, SAGE: free with ID including UMPI faculty and staff. For more information please call, 768-9462.