
Bonnie Carol and Wild Okapi Marimba Band Press Kit information
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With a natural energetic ease, Bonnie Carol sings and plays hammered and fretted dulcimers as well as African marimba, bodhrán, folk drums and hand percussion. A performance is likely to encompass traditional music from North and South America, the British Isles, Caribbean rhythms, and even Tex-Mex tunes, all fitting together in that exuberant whole we call World Music. In addition to her solo concerts, Bonnie can be found playing in an African marimba ensemble, a Celtic ensemble, a square dance band, and accompanying Colorado singer-songwriter, Nancy Cook. Bonnie's music has filled concert halls form New York to Nicaragua for four decades. She is an international ambassador for peace in the most artistic sense, a visionary from the high country of Colorado. She has an arresting natural charm, extraordinary talent and energy, acres of instruments and mountains of talent. Bonnie possesses professional credentials that are some of the most complete in the industry. She has produced, recorded, and distributed half a dozen recordings of her music, on which she plays the majority of the instruments. She put her knowledge of traditional music, dulcimers, and African marimbas into the eight books she has authored. Most of the dulcimer contests across the nation have seen Bonnie win or place. |
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| WILD OKAPI MARIMBA BAND The Wild Okapi Marimba Band is a Peak-to-Peak- grown African marimba ensemble including three Eldora members - Laura Fisher, Audrey Godell, and Lex Ivy, three Nederland members - Pam Ward, Bonnie Carol, and Max Krimmel, one Rollinsville member - Irene Pritsak, one Ward member - Amy LaRue, and one Westminster member - Emil Rinaldi. The stars of the group are the marimbas which Okapi member Max Krimmel built (seven of them; they resemble large xylophones). Much of our marimba music is based on the mbira tradition of the Shona people, the majority cultural group in Zimbabwe, Africa. This music is known world wide for its intricate interlocking polyrhythmic melodies, the trances it produces, and its danceability. The okapi is the closest relative of the giraffe with whom it shares characteristics including a long neck (not as long as a giraffe) and a blue prehensile tongue. Okapis have reddish-brown bodies, black and white horizontally striped legs, and the females are generally larger than males. The shy, secretive okapi was first discovered less than 100 years ago in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). The exact number in the wild is very difficult to estimate - possibly 100-150 individuals. There are 89 in North American zoos, including the Denver zoo that has an active Species Survival Breeding Plan to help prevent the extinction of this rare species. Okapis in the wild are under threat from unstable political conditions and civil war activities in their African home, as well as from the bush meat trade. For more info contact Bonnie Carol, 303 258-7763 - more photos |
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