Ugandan performer and teacher brings music and dance to WWU students

Royal musician of the Busoga and Buganda kingdoms shares tradition, technique

WWU Percussion Professor Patrick Roulet first learned of Haruna Walusimbi from Béla Fleck’s 2008 documentary “Throw Down Your Heart” which follows Fleck’s search for the African origins of the banjo. Roulet met Walusimbi in person in 2019 at the Percussive Arts Society international convention. Walusimbi was performing with a group of percussionists from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Ohio University and Oakland University percussion ensembles.

“Watching Haruna work with these young musicians, I knew immediately that he was someone that I wanted to bring to Western to share his experience and skills with our students.”

The embaire xylophone

Roulet began working with Walusimbi to get the get the embaire xylophone that has become the center of the percussion community at WWU. Roulet had initially planned to travel to Uganda to source the instrument in 2020, but the plan was derailed by the COVID pandemic.

When he heard Walusimbi would be coming to United States this year, Roulet worked with musician Mark Stone - who was organizing the trip - to add WWU to Haruna’s itinerary. The residency was supported by generous grants from the Larson Legacy Foundation and the Sculpture Woods program endowment.

The students here are hungry. They are hungry for knowledge. Every time you give them something, they are even more hungry for something extra. They know what they want. They are very passionate, very determined. They never throw in the towel, they don’t want to give up.  - Haruna Walusimbi

Walusimbi came to WWU May 5 though 9 to work with students studying percussion and dance. He led embaire xylophone clinics on campus on May 5 for the Percussion Ensemble. “We’re the only school that has this instrument on the West Coast,” said Roulet, “so we have a responsibility to teach it correctly. To honor the tradition and the music by doing our best to capture it as well as we can.”

“It’s like a chain. You have to coordinate,” said Walusimbi. “One part leads to the other, one part complements the other. In some way it causes discomfort, causes disharmony, causes confusion. This is one instrument that reflects what a community in Africa is.”

Learning the Tamenha Ibuga dance

In addition to working with the WWU Percussion Ensemble, Walusimbi met with WWU Dance students and taught them the Tamenha Ibuga dance, a traditional dance from the kingdom of Busoga in eastern Uganda. The dance class was accompanied by Mark Stone, with WWU professors James Morford and Patrick Roulet, and Roger Braun from Ohio University.

“It’s fun to dance, and I do think it’s an important part of music that we don’t get to do at Western a lot,” said percussion student Deno Durant, “…no one is dancing to wind symphony music, maybe we should be.”

The following day, musician Mark Stone joined Walusimbi for a public performance in the WWU Concert Hall.

Music and nature combined

Walusimbi and the WWU Percussion Ensemble spent the final two days of the residency, May 8 and 9, at the Sculpture Woods facility on Lummi Island.

“We like to play world music,” said percussion student Jace McCausland, “but we’ve never gotten that perspective of where that music is coming from so that’s been really magical.”

An artist for all seasons

Walusimbi was born in 1965 in the village of Lwanika in Uganda, where he grew up surrounded by the rural music performed at funerals, marriage ceremonies, and other social gatherings. After completing university, Walusimbi founded Nile Beat Artists, widely considered to be one of Uganda’s foremost performing arts troupes.

Walusimbi has achieved international renown as an educator, musician, and actor. In addition to teaching and performing music and dance, he acted roles in the films “Throw Down Your Heart,” produced by American banjo legend Bela Fleck, and in the Academy Award-winning film “The Last King of Scotland.”