January 27, 2023
Oakland University Professor of Music Mark Stone recently traveled to South Africa for the South Africa/America Music Exchange (SAME) Festival, which featured 190 local and international musicians on a single stage.
The initiative sought to amplify the spirit of unity and collaboration through music. It included live concerts, an international symposium, and a regional workshop.
“The South Africa/America Music Exchange tour was a peak experience in my career as an artist-scholar-teacher,” Stone said. “By holistically integrating multiple musical genres, composition, improvisation, scholarly activism, and creative pedagogy, the performances and related events allowed me to be my whole self.”
Joining Stone on the trip were OU music faculty member and OU alumna Gayelynn McKinney, OU Associate Professor of Theatre Jeremy Barnett, and OU alumna Regina Carter.
McKinney, Carter and Stone performed and took part in both the symposium and workshops, while Barnett took part in the symposium and provided technical assistance during the concerts.
“The South Africa trip was a truly wonderful experience,” McKinney said. “It was a great collaboration of music and enrichment of not only my life, but young lives as well through music. We had a workshop on improvisation that was well attended and the kids were very inquisitive. They also had good ideas about the future of African music and jazz.”
During the trip, Stone also premiered a piece of his own — “Seven Generations” — which was based on his experiences while leading OU students on a study abroad in Ghana in 2022.
“Usually when I write music, it’s inspired by a life experience,” he said. “In this case, I was reflecting on the experience of taking my students to Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, and how it’s been approximately seven generations since the slave trade ended at Cape Coast. We’ve come a long way since then, but we still have a long way to go. The piece is inspired by that experience. I dedicated it to those who passed through Cape Coast Castle and their descendants.”
For the SAME Festival, Stone took the ideas from this solo piece and adapted it for a 14-piece marimba band with nine soloists.
“It was a process of thinking about how I can expand it,” he said. “The violin part came the easiest because I’ve known Regina for so long, but the piano and horns took a lot more work. It was a fun process.”
For Stone, being able to contribute an original composition and have it premiered at the festival was a highlight of the trip.
“It was huge rush for me,” he said. “When you compose a piece of music this big, it’s mostly just up in your head, on paper, or in a computer, so to actually hear it come to life was incredible. I was really overwhelmed with tears of joy. It was so exciting to hear it all come together like that.”
You can watch the world premiere of “Seven Generations” in Makhanda, South Africa, on YouTube.