Cultural exchange with Kenyan school

All but one of the complete group of students and faculty from UGA at the equator line in Nairobi, Kenya.

Spring break is known for being a pause in the semester for most students and faculty to recharge their batteries. But for 22 students and faculty from the Hugh Hodgson School of Music and the UGA Department of Dance, spring break 2024 gave them an inspirational opportunity of a lifetime.

Led by HHSOM director Peter Jutras, this group embarked on a cultural and musical exchange to Kenya. For that week, lessons in western instruments were taught by UGA students and faculty at the Moi Girls School in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to teaching classes, the UGA group performed with and for local musicians, took classes in local music and dance traditions, and many experienced life in a different part of the world for the first time.

This was the fourth trip Jutras led. Prior to these trips, music education student Benita Gladney taught at the school for several weeks and helped initiate a program of instrument donations. In 2015, the school approached the leadership of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music with a request: can you help us with our piano curriculum? Jutras, then a professor of piano, thought about offering advice but then proposed going one step further. Perhaps the university could provide not just keyboards, but screens and internet access to allow UGA piano pedagogy students to teach piano remotely.

“Little did we know five years later we would all be teaching remotely,” said Jutras. “At the time, this idea was pretty radical.” Jutras made the first journey in March of 2015. The second took place a year later, with six students making the trip along with Jutras and Skip Taylor, associate professor of music education. This trip expanded the project from piano to include guitar, strings, and wind instruments. Another took place in 2019, along with an exchange opportunity for students from Kenya to study on UGA’s campus.

“And then came covid,” said Jutras. The pandemic thwarted the fourth visit until March, 2024. “By this point, interest in the opportunity had grown to a fever pitch.”

“One of my former teaching assistants went on a spring break trip to teach at Moi Girls School in 2016 with Dr. Jutras and it was a life-changing experience for her,” said Emily Gertsch, senior lecturer in music theory. “I knew it would be the same for me, so when the opportunity came up, I signed up to share this amazing experience with some of my current students.

“I’ll never forget arriving on campus our first day for the welcome ceremony only to hear 2,000 young women sing us a beautiful welcome song. A smaller group of just music students sang the same song for us on the last evening before we left. I still get choked up when I watch the video of them singing to us,” said Gertsch.

Levon Ambartsumian and Shakhida Azimkhodjaeva had the opportunity to play with the Nairobi Symphony Orchestra, a first for them, under the talent and mastery of conductor Mr. Levi Wataka. “This was a visit of firsts for me,” said Ambartsumian, “I’d never been to Africa, and I got to meet with a legend of my youth - Olympic Champion Kipchoge Keino, who won both Mexico and Munich Olympics as a long- distance runner in 1968 and 1972. Such a memorable experience.”

For a few months prior to the exchange, UGA students like Alyssa Cagle (MM ‘24 Piano Performance and Pedagogy) had been teaching a few piano students from the Moi Girls School over Zoom. “It was during these lessons that I got a small glimpse of the highly active and rich musical culture that exists in Kenya, and the incredible kindness and curiosity to learn of these students.”

Winnie Mburu (PhD, ‘26) was also moved by her experience. “The cultural exchange with Moi Girls was a brilliant way to pay it forward. I was a beneficiary of a similar program in high school, and it changed my life. Taking part in this exchange could make the same difference in another girl’s life.” She added, “The experience will remind me to always be grateful for the opportunities I have received in life because not all children from Kenya have access to the same. Seeing how eager the girls were to learn strengthened my resolve to help make quality music lessons more accessible to all children in Kenya.”

UGA Department of Dance faculty Jason Aryeh and Lisa Fusillo and three of their students participated as well, exploring the rich local expressions in dance and culture.

Jutras hopes this exchange program can be a model for other universities and music educators. “ We have so much we can learn from each other,” said Jutras, “and those of us in US higher education have an opportunity to facilitate these kinds of moments on a global scale.” Several other universities have been reaching out to the HHSOM for assistance in developing similar programs.

“I am quite sure that we learned as much or more from them as they learned from us,” Gertsch shared.  “The students at Moi Girls are talented, smart, and incredibly hard working. They are also the kindest and warmest group of people I have ever met, and I am very much looking forward to their future visits to UGA and to our own future trips to Kenya to teach at their wonderful school.”