African Marimba Band Seeks Musician

river st near fern st, Santa Cruz CA

Description

The Singing Wood Marimba Ensemble of Santa Cruz is currently auditioning to add new members for our 2023 performance season. Strong marimba and/or percussion and/or piano experience is required. Experience performing in musical ensembles is preferred. Information about our band is below. ---- Singing Wood performs traditional and contemporary marimba music inspired by the Shona culture of Zimbabwe. Our ensemble consists of seven large handmade African marimbas plus hosho (gourd shakers). We revel in rhythmic complexity and melodic variety. We strive for ensemble clarity and musical excellence. We enjoy each other's company and derive great joy from the music we create together. We have some photos, audio clips, and video links on our band webpage at www.singingwoodband.com. We have a short overview video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQWjxigXyag and some more recent live videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwMqW_ydh1mVLZyV2CdLjplMt0CKyY1a0 We currently rehearse 6 times each month on varying combinations of Mon and Fri evenings. Our band season runs from Nov to the end of Oct and band members sign on to that year-long commitment. We play about 15 gigs per year -- most of them local and on weekends between May and September. Our performance fees generally get invested back into our equipment, travel expenses, and rehearsal comforts....so basically, we rehearse and perform for the pure enjoyment of playing music together. We are all fully vaccinated and require new players to show proof of vaccination. We rehearse in a Santa Cruz studio that is well-ventilated, HEPA filtered, and provides good spacing between players. We are currently choosing to continue masking indoors. We have not yet resumed the singing portions of our repertoire. That's a decent thumbnail sketch about who we are. If we sound interesting to you, and if you have the enthusiasm, the skills, the ambition and the time, email us with your experience and skill set. Looking forward to hearing from you!