Drumming in the Polar Vortex

Spent last week in North Carolina where I was teaching and performing with students from the Forsyth Country Day School, north of Charlotte. Grades 6-12 chorus, band and orchestra students had workshops in Bobobo, Kpanlogo & Gahu. My host Jeremy Truhel is head of Fine Arts at the school, and we met when I was teaching at Ithaca College CME a few summers ago. This is my second visit to the school and we had a blast! The week culminated in an “informance” for most of the Lower School.  What a great and supportive faculty and school community. I was generously fed and housed by one of the faculty member’s family and had a real taste of the south, with more than a few interesting stories.  It was very cold there, particularly for them, but also for me! There was a lovely waterfall next to the outdoor breezeway between buildings and each day it became more and more frozen until there was only a trickle.  That area missed the snow while I was there and I was able to get home safely but shortly after, schools were shut down and terrible snowstorms hit.