 Pete Carels
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| Since we
began in 1995, we have always made public appearances, but they have
increased in number from about half a dozen yearly to easily six
times that. In that time, our numbers (regular member attendance)
usually
fluctuated between ca. 5 - 6 and 7 - 8. We now often number 10 or more
for many gigs and weekly sessions.
As a group, we've arrived at some important milestones. We opened a bank account and are saving toward a selection of decent amplification equipment. We've upgraded our website, with the help of some nice recordings/pictures from Marcia, Kat, Larry, Bill, and Jo. <>Individual members have been making notable strides, too. Larry Sherman established our first presence on the web, but Jo took our website to a whole new level and did a lot in addition to keeping communications flowing. Jo passed away during our 2009 year and we dearly miss her. Larry has once again taken over the web page duties and established our new GoDaddy website and domain name of "OGADE.org". Jo's husband, Bill, added many tunes to his balaphone repertoire while developing his unique choreography and then left us. We miss his presence, too. Kim and Larry have been finding new contacts at Miami to bring our talents to the campus and new talents from campus to us. Patti has expanded our outreach to a wider community in Hamilton County. Kim remains our direct link to Africa, bringing back souvenir items and tales of adventure. Lew contiues to add many Middle Eastern rhythms. Marcia, Patti, Pete and Lew have attended the Sogbety Diomande weekend workshops usually held in August, and Lew and Pete took in the Raquy Danziger doumbek workshop. Lew, Marcia and Pete have been busy making and repairing drums and mallets, while Larry, Bill, and Mary are doing much the same in the gourd instrument department (including balaphones). Lew recently went to Egypt to attend a Middle EAstern druming workshop. Mary stormed back from her year-long medical layoff. Marcia became our account treasurer and provided numerous behind-the-scenes services to the smooth operations of our organization. One of our newest members, Hamer Sizelove has proved to be a cosiderable resource making (turning)maraca handles from Larry's local red ceder trees. Hamer has also inspired what we call "The Hamer Jam", an improvised piece with kind of latin feeling. Other new members include Brad Berman, Jennifer Profitt and Jan Harmon, the leader of the Circle of Rhiannon Traditional Tribal Belly Dance Troup. Jessi, Kat, and Patti added a colorful West African dance to our growing repertoire, not to mention the Middle Eastern flair that Jan and the Circle of Rhiannon continue to bring our way. We're certain to have overlooked many other fine individual accomplishments and contributions and will try to add them in future revisions of our web site. |
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Pete Carels
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Just a few light rules to go by: 1. No food in the barn, please. The balcony is okay or capped drinks but no more ant bait in the barn itself. 2. Please be aware of where the chair legs are. Keep them on the carpets. Along with that is to please don't drag hard objects across the wooden or the linoleum floors. They leave scratches. 3. And please try to keep chairs and instruments where you find them. They've all been put in those places for a reason so ask me if you want to rearrange the furniture. We will have a very happy barn if we
can all remember these guidelines. Thank you much! |
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Jessi
was one of our first
members and she began drumming lessons when she was in elementary
school in Oxford, Ohio. She designed our front page black & white
print of the OGADE gang. Jessie graduated from Miami University's
School of Fine Arts in 2009 and is living in Cincinnati
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Les
lives with his wife Mary in
Cincinatti and still plays with us once in awhile. He usually
knows what are current status is and what and where we are performing. |
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Jo
was the primary designer of
this web page. The web page lived on her own personal
computer. She played many of our gourd instruments and even
designed and made some gourd instruments of her own. Jo was quite
adventursome and always ready to try something new. Jo passed away in
2009 from a long battle with cancer. Her husband, Bill, was quite
helpful in passing the web archives on to us so that we could pursue
the next step in our development, OGADE.ORG, where the web site is
presently hosted on GoDaddy server space. |
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Bill
was Jo's husband of 14
years. He was our main tonal element in the group playing the 12
keyed Ghanian balaphone. He had a lot of computer and web savy
and helped us make the transition to our new web site. Bill was
one of our international members coming to us from Canada where he
hopes to return soon. |
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Hannah
played with us for
a few years while she finished a Master's degree from Miami
University's English Department. She managed to dance along while
playing the big DunDun drums. She has moved on to Colorado where
she lives with her husband Ray. |
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Paul
Monson played many of our
African drums. He came to us from Oregon and was working on a
Master's degree in the Psychology department at Miami University.
Paul is now traveling about the world and sometimes lets us know where
he is (England, France, South East Asia? ) |
