A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
The JUNO award winning band Digging Roots had everyone singing, clapping and playing as part of their concert and workshops at the Akwesasne Mohawk School.
Even AMS head cook, Darius White got into the act, invited by Kanatakta to play, White jammed with the band.
Digging Roots drummer Paul Brennan talks to Reese Square and Peter Martin during workshops held as part of the Arts Block classes at AMS.
With fellow middle school students looking on, Brody Jacobs Oakes get a little help from Raven Kanatakta, lead vocalist and guitar of Digging Roots during the band's private concert at AMS.
Kendall Jacobs, a middle school student at AMS, shows Leo Valvassori, the bass player for Digging Roots, how he can make music too!
In another classroom at AMS, Lisa Zeran conducts her choral class with lead singer ShoShona Kish of Digging Roots.
Leo Valvassori (left) and Paul Brennan (right), band members of Digging Roots, held workshops with the AMS "Arts Block" students and shared their expertise as professional musicians.
On Friday, April 11, 2014 the Akwesasne Mohawk School received a huge boost to their Art Block classes with a visit from the 2010 JUNO award winning band "Digging Roots." The band consists of lead guitar and vocalist ShoShona Kish and Raven Kanatakta, on drums is Paul Brennan and bass guitar is Leo Valvassori. Kish and Kanatakta met in college and played at open mic sessions and gigs in between studying. Then they went on to form the band "Digging Roots." They made a few albums and toured often and hit it big when in 2010 they won a JUNO award for the Best Aboriginal Album of the year with "We Are." The band has toured Norway, Australia, South America, most of the United States and all of Canada, except the North West territories of which they will tour this summer.
While on tour the band members like to meet the locals and visit local schools. On Friday, the Akwesasne Mohawk Middle School students were treated to vocal and band workshops facilitated by Kish, Kanatakta, Brennan and Valvassori. Students were already grouped by class and subject following the Arts Block where students have the choice of going into Native Art, vocals, drama, instrumental and up until January, dance classes. Kish went into the Vocals class and as much as she treated the students to her singing, the students treated Kish to a performance of their songs. Brennan and Valvassori were in another classroom talking to students and sharing some of their learning experiences about how they became interested in music, when they started to play and the passion most musicians share in becoming the best musical artist you can be. Kish described how she started out in creative writing classes in college and ended up writing lyrics to songs. Kish told the students she didn't know how to break out from where she was when she was young, and how music was a real outlet for her, going so far as to say, "Music saved my life." "Music has been a vehicle to a really good life for me, I live a rich existence in family, children, music, travel and friends."
Over the past years they have wrote over 300 songs, 35 of them recorded and another 35 not on record and some that will never be heard by anyone other than the writer. They do 50 to 200 shows a year and have traveled far and wide. Kish states the more she has traveled and experienced different cultures and societies, the more she feels connected. She sees the younger generation making the shift to the direction of where we should go in the future in terms of the environment, family, and culture and traditions. She encouraged the students to dream. She remembers a time when she felt so low she had no future, she could not dream let alone see for the next day. Now Kish knows music has been a life raft for her and given her a sense of self.
Afterwards students were given a private performance where some eager and lucky students had the chance of singing or playing guitar with the band. The Digging Roots band will have a CD out in June and follow that with a tour throughout Canada, the United States and Mexico. You can find them on the web at http://www.diggingrootsmusic.com, on Facebook, Instagram, and on Twitter.
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