The workshops and clinics that The Afro-Semitic Experience offer come in many formsBas a group or with individual members leading specialized workshops. Every member of the group is an experienced teacher with years of educational experience. Bringing The Afro-Semitic Experience in for a series of workshops is like bringing in an entire university of musical and spiritual knowledge and information.

Group Workshops
The group is often called upon to facilitate discussions about Black-Jewish relationsBabout race and interfaith dialogue. In addition the group works with music students: teaching the process of creating inter-cultural music as well as infusing spirituality into performance.

Individual Specializations
Will Bartlett has thirty years of experience as a professional woodwind performer and educator. He has led saxophone master classes and workshops on jazz improvisation, jazz theory, arranging and composing for the small ensemble, and klezmer clarinet interpretation.

Warren Byrd is a pianist, composer, and vocalist with an extensive and eclectic background. He has led workshops in Jazz Composition and Theory, Jazz Piano, as well as Gospel Arranging and Composition, and Vocal Training. Some of his workshop titles include Synthesis and Music as Spiritual Process.

Dr. David Chevan holds a Ph.D. in Musicology and specializes in the history and performance of jazz and Jewish music. He has experience teaching workshops on world and jazz improvisation, Jewish music, klezmer ensemble performance, music and spirituality, the Afro-Semitic Experience!!

Baba David Coleman is a Yoruban priest, African drummer, and African drum builder. His workshops use African culture as a guide to help all people to understand themselves and each other so we can break down the wall of fear. His workshop, Drumming for Peace, includes lessons in drum making and learning techniques for performing Afro-Cuban, Brazilian, Afro-American, and West African drum styles.

Babafemi Alvin Carter, Jr. plays drum set, Afro-Caribbean percussion, and the drums of the West Afrikan djembe drum ensemble. His workshops and clinics focus on many styles of drumming including jazz, R&B, gospel, and blues. He has developed an innovative and exciting workshop for merging Afro-Caribbean, West Afrikan and Klezmer drum styles with contemporary percussion patterns.

Stacy Phillips is a Grammy winning multi-stylistic steel guitarist and violinist. His Klezmer Collection was the first book of accurate transcriptions of early klezmer music. Phillips has conducted workshops on traditional music and his chosen instruments as well as classes on klezmer violin and repertoire and its application to steel guitar.

For more information on workshops with The Afro-Semitic Experience please contact David Chevan at 203-287-5446 or e-mail him at dchevan@snet.net.