Instructor: Angela Scharfenberger

Angela Scharfenberger has dedicated over 30 years to a love of African music. With familial music roots and academic classical piano and voice, she discovered African drums at Kente International in the early 1990s. This led to a week-long workshop with Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji in 1994. Under the tutelage of Sowah Mensah she intensively studied Ghanaian drums, songs, and xylophone (1994-1998) in Minnesota. Angela’s next deep dive was into Zimbabwean mbira, song and marimba with the late Dr. Sheasby Matiure (2005-2009) while earning her M.A. (2009) and PhD (2017) in Ethnomusicology and African Studies from IU. Both of her mentors encouraged Angela to teach. Angela spent two summers (2006, 2012) learning music and conducting anthropological research in Ghana and Zimbabwe, and an intensive two weeks in the Gambia (2021). She has produced dozens of workshops and concerts for touring African musicians, including Saakumu Drum Ensemble. Angela currently performs with Yapa! (cumbia), The Song Sparrows (bluegrass), and Calabash (kora and balafon). Angela has taught at the Louisville Folk School for five years, with over 100 students and a focus on community building and cultural understanding.