After three days of classroom workshops by percussionist and korist Diali Cissokho, Chatham County’s George Moses Horton Middle School students gave a riveting performance.
Sponsored in part by MOSAIC and Chatham Park, this residency is the most recent expansion of the Chatham Arts Council’s (CAC) Artists-in-Schools (AIS) program, an initiative founded in 2015 to bolster art education by bringing professional teaching artists into schools.
Students of Horton Middle enjoyed the teachings of Diali Cissokho, a master korist, percussionist, vocalist and composer originally from Senegal. Diali comes from a long line of Manding griots, musical storytellers and historians and grew up surrounded by West African traditional music.
Today, he shares his love for music with audiences – and students – in Pittsboro.
“The AIS student performance was a tremendous success,” says MOSAIC Events and Assistant Property Manager Savannah Fox. “I enjoyed watching the children perform dances to the African drumming music they learned from Diali. It was heartwarming to see students step out of their comfort zones and have fun.”
Horton Middle students also shared comments after Diali’s residence: “I liked learning something I have never experienced before in my life” and “I liked how it made me feel.”
Chatham Park and MOSAIC celebrate art’s positive effect on our community and support CAC’s mission to make Chatham the first county in North Carolina to have Artists-in-Schools in every public school, every year.
