Their home is 9,000 miles away, but a pair of young musicians from the African nation of Malawi felt right at home performing their unique sound, produced in part by home-made instruments, for an appreciative audience of 340 students at Wethersfield Elementary School Thursday.
The Madalitso Band, a self-described dance folk duo consisting of Yosef Kalekeni and Yobu Malinga, were basically unknown street performers roaming from one small village to another in their home country of Malawi, and its capital, Lilongwe, for 10 years before being discovered by a local producer in 2009 resulting in the release of their first album.
By 2017 they were performing at major music festivals in Africa and Europe and, in 2019, released their second album. This spring the pair, who flew on an airplane for the first time six years ago, embarked on a four month, 80 concert tour of Europe, their sixth, and their first tour in the U.S., returning to Malawi in October.
The Madalitso Band performs traditional music with unconventional musical instruments, according to their publicity. The artists use a 4-string acoustic guitar and foot drum, and a long, homemade, one string instrument called a babatone, along with vocals. The wire for the long-necked babatone comes from a rubber tire.
Stephanie Hagaman, elementary and junior high vocal music teacher, said she was contacted last spring by John Taylor of Crossroads Cultural Connections, a non-profit organization based in Cambridge “dedicated to the growth and vitality of the region through the celebration of the arts by offering the community arts opportunities, programming and community events,” according to their website.
Taylor, who hosts private house concerts featuring various musicians and groups in his backyard, wondered if Mrs. Hagaman would be interested in hosting touring artists at a school assembly. She said yes. Taylor later contacted her and said the Madalitso Band could visit the school on Sept. 28. The duo had performed a public concert in College Square Park in Cambridge the previous evening.
Mrs. Hagaman reserved Moss Gym for a morning concert and brought in kindergarten through sixth graders and junior high band and chorus students.
“They were amazing,” she said after the highly interactive concert. “It was great to see and hear something different.
The Malawians, through their interpreter since they only speak Chichewa, the Malawian national language, taught the students several words in their native tongue and two songs, which they all sang. The students then returned the gift singing one verse of their school song, :Wethersfield Forever!,” for their guests. At one point, they asked Mrs. Hagaman for a bottle of water. “I thought they were going to drink it,” she said. Instead, they needed it to tune one of their home-made instruments.
A WES student whose family recently moved to Kewanee from England, found a kindred accent in the duo’s interpreter, Neil Nayor,who said before hooking up with the band, he had left England with a one-way ticket to Malawi and never went back.
The cover notes of Wasalala, their second album released under Bongo Joe Records, a label from Geneva, said ”When the music inside is so strong that it says, ‘Why should we buy our instruments, when we can build our own, and get the sound we want?’ The music inside by the Madalitso Band is so strong, and it comes out effortlessly, full of syncopated rhythms, lush harmonies and a solid back beat. Two nice guys from the village in Malawi, smiling their way around the world and bringing dance floors to life. What’s there not to like about that?”
The band’s $250 fee was paid by the Wethersfield Music Boosters.
