Great Falls Forum with Kafari

The 2017-2018 season of the Great Falls Forum continues on Thursday, April 19^th, featuring musician and Maine Academy of Modern Music instructor Kafari, with a talk entitled “Seeking Wholeness in the Creative Process: Practice, Performance, and Community.” The program will take place from 12 noon to 1 PM in Callahan Hall at the Lewiston Public Library.
‘Kafari’ is the alias of Ahmad Hassan Muhammad, a Portland-based pianist, beatmaker, bluegrass percussionist, and community artist. A self-proclaimed “sound healer,”Kafari’s music career has been guided by a desire to be whole, and a belief that tapping into the infinite treasure trove of creativity within each of us is part of the healing work through which we can realize wholeness.
Kafari’s work as a community artist in Maine extends from the Preble Street Teen Center in Portland, where he has been a weekly piano teacher for over two years, all the way to the Center for Grieving Children, where he and banjoist Jake Hoffman recently finished a series of workshops that gave elementary students the chance to learn to play the banjo and rhythm bones and discuss the meanings of culture, cultural exchange and cultural appropriation.
Within Kafari’s work as a composer, performer, and teacher is an invitation to connect with the deeper parts of who we are, like his most recent LP Knockturnes, a dreamweaving series of jazz-inflected electronic soundscapes that invite the listener to sink into the peace and bliss of the night; or his recent 2017 TEDx performance in Portland, ME, where he and Hoffman shared the history of the rhythm bones, the banjo, blackface minstrelsy, and reckoned with how these colonized histories affect contemporary bluegrass and folk players.
This deeply personal presentation will examine how we think about creativity, what place it can have in our lives, and the process of personal creativity becoming shared with a community. In the process, Kafari will share some of the ideas and methods that have most shaped and inspired his music career. This talk is intended for all people of all ages and walks of life.

The Great Falls Forum is a monthly, brown-bag speaker series featuring statewide and regional leaders in public policy, business, academia and the arts. The programs are free, open to all and no reservations are required. Coffee, tea and bottled water are provided for a donation at the event. The Forum is a co-sponsorship of the Sun Journal, Bates College and LPL.
For more information, contact LPL Adult & Teen Services at (207) 513-3135 or LPLReference@Gmail.com