Performers

Matana Roberts, Rich Marsella and the KidsAbility Youth Ensemble (New York, Ontario)

The Upper Wyndham Jazz Tent festivities will kick off this year by featuring a special, community-based collaboration. Two exceptional musicians and uncommon music educators, New York saxophonist Matana Roberts and Georgetown’s own Rich Marsella, will lead an ensemble of young musicians from the Guelph chapter of KidsAbility Centre for Child Development.

Matana Roberts is well known not only for her incendiary saxophone playing, but also for her work in music pedagogy and activism through which she works to forge ties between music-making and community-building. Rich Marsella, away from his Lollipop People, is (in)famous for his Music Roots Seminars, through which he’s introduced the delights of noisy music-making to countless grade-schoolers in the Peel Board of Education and featured them by the hundreds, all on homemade instruments, in the joyful morass of sound that is known as Brampton’s Parade of Noises. KidsAbility aims to help children and young adults with developmental, physical and communication disabilities. The Centre provides services to children from birth to eighteen years of age. Services may be provided in homes, childcare agencies, schools and community settings.

Matana Roberts, Rich Marsella and the KidsAbility Youth Ensemble will be joined by percussionist Rob Wallace for this performance.

Websites:
www.matanaroberts.com
www.friendlyrich.com
www.kidsability.ca