Biologist Janis Weeks and Marilyn Mohr of the UO Libraries play an African instrument called the mbira.
Their shared love of this music has connected them with musical colleagues across the globe.
Weeks and Mohr play the mbira dzavadzimu, an African musical instrument that consists of a wooden board to which staggered metal keys have been attached.
The two friends learned to play the instrument through Kutsinhira Cultural Arts Center, a Eugene nonprofit organization dedicated to studying and sharing the music of Zimbabwe. Their teacher was Cosmas Magaya, a Zimbabwean musician who teaches and performs in the U.S., Canada and Zimbabwe, spending part of every year in each area of the world.
As Weeks explains in the video below, there are two parts to playing the mbira—the “kushaura,” or “lead,” and the “kutsinhira,” or “follow.” “The fundamental music is two parts playing against each other—new rhythms and melodies emerge,” Weeks said. “One reason our music center is called ‘Kutsinhira’ is that we’re following a note struck in Zimbabwe.”
Weeks has also taken her work as a biologist to Africa, to serve global health needs. Read the Cascade story.
— story and video, Matt Cooper
"You are your microbes" is the message from UO biologists in a TED Ed video and TEDx talk.
