The Navy Band, Topside, Plays at CIAMO

It’s not every day that CIAMO’s students see a saxophone, a tuba, trumpets, and trombones played masterfully. Yesterday, August 23^rd, 2011, CIAMO had the opportunity to host Topside, a high-energy brass band of the U.S. Navy.  While the HSV-2 Swift is in town, the American Cultural Center has been taking Topside around to see the sites and play for appreciative audiences all over southern Benin.

They arrived at 11 o’clock for a workshop with a group of children at CIAMO.  The students learned the name of each instrument and had the opportunity to hear each one play solo before they went full force into a short concert. The energy was great and the children loved the music.

After lunch, seeing a few sites, and getting pythons wrapped around their necks, the troupes played a concert to an audience of about 150 people at the Python Temple, including the mayor of Ouidah, the director of the American cultural center, and the military community from the Ouidah Military Camp.

The concert consisted of American classics including Ray Charles, some Dixieland tunes and Michael Jackson as well as some African classics like Malaika and the Waka Waka.

The CIAMO team thanks American Cultural Center Director, Rhonda Watson, and the US Embassy community for their continued collaboration. We look forward to future opportunities to promote cultural exchange in Ouidah and throughout Benin.