M.I.D.F

FOUNDER/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR – MUHTADI

Muhtadi has been performing professionally for over 30 years, both nationally and internationally, as well as devoting much time to community arts programs in schools and community centres. Trinidad-born, he immigrated to Canada in 1974. 

In 2000, he founded the Muhtadi International Drumming Festival and has been artistic director from its inception.  

As one of Canada’s premier percussionists, Muhtadi plays djembe, bongos, congas, timbales, steel pan, and a wide assortment of other percussion instruments. 

He has worked with such renowned performers as Mary Wilson from The Supremes; award-winning percussionist and composer Ralph MacDonald (‘Where Is The Love”, “Mister Magic”); calypsonians Lord Kitchener, Duke, Sparrow, Super Blue and Baron; and many more.

Each year he returns to Trinidad and Tobago for Carnival to perform with the world-famous Desperadoes Steel Orchestra–a 100-piece steel orchestra–for the annual Panorama Steel Band Competition.

International performances also include Cuba, St. Kitts, Taiwan, India, United States, and Mexico. In Toronto, Muhtadi has performed at the Queen’s Jubilee, Lion Dance Festival, Winterfest, Yonge Street Festival, and numerous jazz festivals.

In June 2004, he performed in Rhythm River-a major concert at the Hummingbird Centre-with renowned Calypsonian David Rudder and popular jazz pannist  Andy Narell.

In addition, Muhtadi has conducted many percussion workshops across Canada and internationally for a wide variety of communities.

He has the distinguished honour of being the only artist to work with Art Starts Neighbourhood Cultural Centre from their beginning in 1992 to the present. In 1996, Muhtadi received a Canada Council award for a study tour in Senegal to work with elders of Senegal and Guinea. 

He has received awards from Music Africa and the Town of Markham. He has been a music Judge for Caribana for over 12 years, as well as for the Kiwanis Music Festival and the City of Toronto subway musicians (buskers). 

The International Drumming Festival has completed six successful years  supported by a community members, groups, and organizations with whom Muhtadi has collaborated in a variety of year-round, community-based activities and performances.

Venues for these activities include the Wellesley Community Centre, Harbourfront Centre, St. Clair Services for Seniors, Scadding Court, Toronto District School Board, Toronto Catholic District School Board, Peel Region School Board, and York Region School Board.

In June 2004, Muhtadi received commendations from the 12 Division Community Police Liaison Committee in Toronto for his work with a group of young people from the York region who have been labeled “at-risk kids,” that is, potential young offenders.

Barbara Spyopoulos, the chair of the committee wrote, “Not only have they been exposed to the pleasures of music through drumming with a drum master of international calibre, they have also been to places that they may never have dreamed of going to, much less performed there.”

On February 19, 2005, Muhtadi was featured on CBC’s (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Global Village, ”an award-winning radio show that brings listeners news about music, musicians, musical events, musical traditions, musical innovations and just plain musical life as it happens all around the world.”

The Globe and Mail
December 17, 2005

The Drumming Circle of Hope by Margaret Wente

Master drummer Muhtadi is the kind of man who commands respect. His voice is low. But when he talks, you listen. “That’s not bad,” he tells the drumming circle after a rousing but ragged practice round. “But you have to focus.”

The drummers focus, and do it again. They’ve got a public performance coming up in three days.

“You have to be proud of your group,” Muhtadi (who uses only his first name) tells them. “You’re coming out to show people what you’re made of. You have to conduct yourself a certain way all the time. You’re on a stage, and you don’t know who’s looking at you. Be aware of that. All your performances have to be excellent. Not good — excellent.”

Adrion Charles and Muanza Teka are listening hard.

Muhtadi might not put it this way, but he’s fighting for these kids’ souls. The neighbourhood where they live has been a hotbed of gun violence, and teenage peer pressure is very strong.

The York Square Drumming Squad is made up of about 15 boys and girls between 8 and 17. They use traditional West African djembe drums, which you hold between your knees and play with your hands. When everyone is drumming in rhythm, they make a thrilling sound.

Some of the kids have had trouble in school; at least one has severe attention deficit disorder. The largely immigrant area is among the poorest in the city. The kids love the drumming because it’s something they can be good at, and because it gives them somewhere to belong.

One of the group’s young leaders is a tall and lovely girl named Sandra Amoah; she’s only 11 but looks and acts much older. “We eat together,” says Sandra. “We perform together, laugh together, cry together — “

“Get yelled at together,” Adrion interjects. “We’re a family. We all love it because we put so much into it.”

Adrion joined the group two years ago, at 14. He was pretty unfocused then. Today, he’s a role model for the younger kids. He likes to kid around, but he’s also serious and thoughtful. “We’ve seen what’s wrong with the community. We’re trying to build a bridge — a bridge from the worst to the best.”

At 16, Adrion is turning into a leader.

The drum squad has some unusual features. Two of its members are cops — white, armed, in uniform. They are there as part of an outreach effort in a community that’s deeply wary of the police. They, too, show up every week for practice. The kids are very fond of them, and vice versa.

“Before, the police were not really seen as positive,” says Adrion. And sometimes they still aren’t. Some parents are so hostile to police that they don’t want their kids involved with them in any way.

But these kids hope the drum squad will help change perceptions. “Some people might see that we’re having a good time, and maybe they’ll come along,” says Kenderson Cato, who’s 16.

Muhtadi has been teaching drumming for many years. It takes patience and persistence to connect, to build up trust, especially with teenage boys. “I use the drumming to teach them team-building, co-operation, discipline,” he says. “When I first came here, they were all over the place — they just wanted something to bang on, to make noise. Now they say, let us do it the way Muhtadi would want us to.”

There’s another person in the drumming circle. Her name is Lola Rasminsky, and she’s the reason why everyone else is here. (She’s also a good friend.) Ms. Rasminsky’s life work is offering enrichment programs through the arts — singing, dance, painting, drama. Her private arts school is a long-time favourite of Toronto’s elites. But she is passionately determined that the joy, the discipline and the sense of mastery that grow out of instruction in the arts should be extended to all kids, not just the privileged ones. (Arts education in the schools didn’t survive the cutbacks of the 1990s.)

And so, 10 years ago, she launched a charitable foundation called Arts for Children. It started as a scholarship program, and now offers outreach programs in 55 schools in poor neighbourhoods. There’s also a six-week arts summer camp, the drumming squad, a teenage choir, and much more. She only uses the most gifted teachers (it was she who found Muhtadi). Her programs now reach 7,000 kids a year, and she can’t keep up with the demand. Arts for Children survives mostly on private charitable donations.

“I see how talented these kids are,” she says. “Whether or not they are successful at school is completely irrelevant to what they can do in art or music or dance. They all have natural abilities.”

Working with these kids is not like working with kids in Rosedale or the Annex. Ms. Rasminsky is constantly on the phone with them, reminding them to show up for practice, buying them pizza, sometimes cajoling their reluctant parents into letting them take part. She’s so passionate about the drumming group that she usually shows up for practice. In a neighbourhood that doesn’t take easily to outsiders, she has built up an extraordinary rapport.

“Muhtadi is kind of the father figure of the group,” says Adrion. “And Lola is like the mother figure. She helps us out a lot. We get fed. The way she talks to us… her vibe around us.”

The other kids all nod in agreement. They are family.

The drum squad takes the kids to places they’ve never seen before. That’s one reason they like it. They’ve played at Queen’s Park, the CBC and the Air Canada Centre. In the spring, they’re going to make a CD. Most important, they’ve gained a new appreciation of their own potential, and of the choices they can make.

“Don’t be a follower. Be a leader,” says Kenderson.

“Sometimes, you have to live outside the box,” says Muanza, 17, who arrived here five years ago from war-torn Angola. “In most places in Canada, there are lots of opportunities.”

“I want to say to other kids out there, if you have a dream, you pursue that dream,” says Tajai, who’s 10.

The kids have absorbed Muhtadi’s lessons well. They end the practice with a crescendo that begins with the softest brush of hands on drums, like the beating of birds’ wings. The sound rises, slowly, slowly, until it fills the room. The kids are good. And they’re flying.

Copyright:Globe & Mail, Canada