LAFAYETTE TODAY
Music Bridges Cultures
What do you get when you mix rock and roll, rap, jazz, techno, and house music with a student’s desire for intercultural integration?
You get JAMM (Just About Making Music). Spearheaded by Hiroyuki Kiyono ’06, a double major in international affairs and government & law, it’s a music club that brings students of different cultures
together to perform an array of
diverse musical styles.
Among other venues, JAMM performed at an exhibition mounted by the Foundation for the Awareness and Alleviation of Poverty, another new student organization, to benefit earthquake relief efforts by the Edhi Foundation in Pakistan and at the annual Block pARTy sponsored by
the Office of Recreation Services,
Arts Society, and other campus groups.
“It was a safe space, a hangout where people felt comfortable to
create and invent,” says a JAMM member. “It was experiencing something very rarely felt on the campus if you are not part of the majority, a comfortable place. In
every other club I’ve been to I felt like an outsider the first couple of meetings, but never at JAMM.”
“Everyone’s always interested and respectful, but most important, passionate about music of all kinds,” says another member. “We jumped head-first into projects and didn’t beat dead horses discussing them, which gave the group an ‘improv’ feel and always kept it interesting.”
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