Haruna Walusimbi and Mark Stone will present a hands-on workshop exploring drumming, song, and dance from Uganda, East Africa.

Haruna Walusimbi is a royal musician, Grammy Award winning instrumentalist, vocalist, and dancer from Uganda. He is one of Uganda’s most celebrated artists, with extensive performance and teaching experience. Mark Stone is an acclaimed percussionist and music educator from Michigan. He was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar at Makerere University in Uganda and is currently Professor of World Music at Oakland University in the U.S. 

Prof Mark Allen Stone, Gɔba is an improviser-composer and performer-scholar with a passion for using music to bring diverse communities together. An internationally recognized percussionist, he has performed with the foremost musicians of Uganda, Ghana, South Africa, India, Trinidad, Ecuador, Brazil, and the United States. Also, an accomplished composer and improviser, Stone leads the Stone Sound Collective. His original musical style results from innovative performance practice rooted in knowledge of multiple world traditions. Through his dedication to the study of Dagara Gyil music, the Gyil Gɔba elders of Hiineteng, Ghana honored him with the title of "Gyil Gɔba" in recognition of his 2016 completion of the Gyil Gɔba initiation.

Walusimbi and Stone have performed together since 1997, presenting moving concerts and enlightening educational programs featuring ngoma repertoire of Uganda and new music rooted within the ngoma tradition. As an expert dancer, singer, and performer of the endingidi fiddle, akogo kalimba, enkwanzi panpipes, embaire xylophone, ntongooli harp, ebigwala trumpet, and many types of drums, Haruna Walusimbi truly embodies the holistic nature of traditional East African music. Mark Stone’s extensive background as a composer and performer of multiple African and American percussion instruments including the new array mbira brings a contemporary global dimension to the duo’s performances. Walusimbi and Stone have performed and taught together at concert venues and universities throughout the United States, Uganda, and South Africa.