Marimba band to play Sept. 19

The Slab at the Boundary County Fairgrounds will be hopping with a barbecue supper from 5 to 6:30 p.m. and a concert/dance with Sesitshaya Marimba from 6:30 to 8. Saturday, Sept. 19.

There will be a hands-on workshop with Sesitshaya Marimba 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 20, at Trinity Lutheran for those interested in playing in the new Bonners Ferry marimba band. No experience is needed, and no music reading skills are required.

Their performance is a fundraiser for forming the local marimba band co-sponsored by the Bonners Ferry United Methodist and Trinity Lutheran churches. Instruments are needed for the new band.

The rhythmic, non-stop music from South Africa and the Caribbean it is almost impossible to sit still. Even the most reticent will find their fingers snapping as the marimbas, from a huge bass one to the smaller “soprano” marimbas, take up the beat.

A popular marimba band in the Inland Northwest, Sesitshaya Marimba played at the Tumbleweed Music Festival in the Tri-Cities over Labor Day weekend and will be at the Spokane Folk Festival in October.

Sesitshaya Marimba has been together since 2003. The band is made up of a diverse group of professional women who love playing for an audience. They will be joined by Brian Davis, a University of Idaho student from Sandpoint, plus two children from Moscow.

Their repertory has been shaped by two Zimbabwean musicians, Tendekai Kuture and Tendai Muparutsa, as each pursued a graduate degree in music at the University of Idaho.  Their music is a unique blend of the full, earthy sound of Kwanongoma marimbas from Bulaway, Zimbabwe along with marimbas built in the Pacific Northwest.