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TASANA CAMARA
Master Balafon & Kora Musician
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Tasana Camara - also known as Lansana Camara - comes from a long line of griot Musicians from Guinea, West Africa who play traditional Mandinka music. His family make all their instruments and organize musicians to play locally in the villages for family events and for concerts in the villages and Conakry, the urban seaport of Guinea.
Invite Tasana to perform for your event !
STUDY AFRICAN MUSIC !
Tasana teaches classes in Balafon, Kora and West African drumming and percussion. There are regular ongoing classes in Gainesville, Florida. He is available for workshops & performances out-of-town by request. He can bring an entire African Ensemble along to make your event extraordinary!
For more information, email: melodyrecord@gmail.com
***SCHOOL PROGRAMS - AFRICAN CULTURE AND MUSIC***
Tasana has a gentle spirit and loves teaching children of all ages traditional music and songs from his beloved country of Guinea in West Africa.
For many years in Holland, he presented cultural performances and taught drumming and singing to school children at the AFRIKA MUSEUM in Nijmegen and other locations in Holland and more recently at schools in many Florida cities such as Gainesville, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Tampa and Miami.
*** To have Tasana come teach and perform at your school please email him at: melodyrecord@gmail.com ***
Sidney Lanier African Music and Dance Program for Children with Disabilities
Tasana and his brother Alsaney founded Group Laiengee, an ensemble comprised of children with significant disabilities who live and perform in Conakry, the busy coastal city of Guinea, West Africa. He has been using his expertise in the United States at the Sidney Lanier Center, a public school in Gainsville, Florida for students with severe disabilities, at which he assists the school’s community music program. His approach offers children a way to regain success and offer value to their community through rhythms, singing, and dance. Tasana was awarded a Jubilation Foundation Fellowship which allowed him to travel to Guinea in 2009 to support his brother Alsaney in securing a center for the Laeingee Dance & Music Ensemble for handicapped kids in Conakry thanks to the nomination from the Sidney Lanier Charter School in Gainesville where Tasana has been teaching and performing with handicapped children since 2007.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_D5S1FJ3os
Group Laiengee
A cooperative music approach for assisting children with disabilities in Guinea, West Africa. Pictures and a description of the program can be found on this website:
http://www.oncoursesystems.com/school/webpage.aspx?id=24619&xpage=653994
BIOGRAPHY
As a young boy, Tasana first began playing Guinea folkloric music with his father and brother. He started playing the balafon first, then mastered the Kora as a young man. In 1982, he founded Group Yeleba in Conakry. He later performed with Ballet Senegal and Ballet la Maise in Dakar from 1985 to 1987, then joined the Ballet Djouliba - traveling all over the world with the National Ballet of Guinea - until 1990 when he became an Artist-in Residence in Holland for 15 years. There he worked with FATALA, Sundiata Kieta, and EVON BONDE.
In 2005, Tasana came to America to perform in the African Dance and Music production AGEBIDIDI with
Abou Sylla and Mohamed DaCosta at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Tasana found the people and climate so wonderful in Florida that he decided to establish a residence there.
Tasana's many loyal friends in Holland and his American wife provided funding to support an ongoing project build a large house in Mambiya, a village many miles north of the seaport of Conakry, in hopes of one day it being used as an international cultural center to study traditional dance and music. Tasana hopes to one day be able to bring his 2 teenage sons from Africa to America and work together as a family performing group. Tasana's youngest 2 children are growing up in Holland and are being supported there by their mothers.
ORDER PROFESSIONAL QUALITY INSTRUMENTS FROM AFRICA !
Balafons and drums handcrafted by Tasana's famous family of master craftsmen
can be ordered and shipped directly from Guinea.
Koras can be ordered here, made by Tasana, with either natural tuning or keys.
STUDY AFRICAN MUSIC !
Tasana teaches classes in Balafon, Kora and West African drumming and percussion. He is available for workshops and performances anywhere in the America... and the world! Simply request his presence.
For more information, email: melodyrecord@gmail.com
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