Kari Kjome (Cho-mee)
Kari Kjome is a Minneapolis-based percussionist and composer. Kari is the Music Director of the Women's Drum Center, where she has created classes, concerts, and outreach to women and girls since 2000. Kari teaches and facilitates multiple styles of drumming at after-school programs, churches, and other venues including the Phillips-Powderhorn Cultural Wellness Center, Oakland Methodist Church, Urban Arts Academy, and East Metro Music Academy. She is active in the Women's Drum Center Outreach Program, offering classes to Girl Scout Programs, Schools, and other groups.
Kari actively teaches from her home studio as well. She offers seasonal group classes in ceremonial frame drumming for personal spiritual practice and community ritual. These culminate in the group facilitating the music and energy for public celebrations, integrating their rhythms with dance, meditation, and song. She facilitates a regular weekly women's hand-drumming circle, as well as periodic drum circles and classes open to all genders and drumming styles. In addition, she teaches private lessons on hand drums, kit drums, and frame drums. Kari personally integrates her drumming practice with her spiritual practice in the forms of personal meditation, rhythmic offerings to monthly New Moon gatherings and song circles, and a dedicated commitment to providing rhythm for larger community ceremonies and rites of passage.
Kari has experience with a diverse range of styles including jazz, blues, folk, rock, Celtic, Brazilian, Middle Eastern, and Ghanaian. She has performed with many local groups including the following critically acclaimed ensembles: a cappella group The Collective, folk band Pimentos for Gus, Irish/Appalachian band Broomfield Hill, and African Dance Group Hayor Bibimma. She is active in the local theater scene, including performing for In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, BareBones Productions, and the Feile Brid annual festival, amongst others. Theater highlights include: Soothsayer 2003, The Temple of Loom 2004, Between the Worlds, Dec 2002; City Rhapsody, Nov/Dec 2000; Eye Ear Hand Mouth: A Body of Short Works,1998; Illuminations (with the College of St. Catherine), Fall 1998; May Day Parade and Festival, 1998-present.
Kari is a musician for the University of Minnesota Dance and Theater Department and several local dance schools. Kari is an active composer of poly-rhythmic compositions. Three percussion ensembles under her leadership have performed her composition, "Funk Groove," and several of her pieces are featured in the repertoire of Drumheart Women's Percussion Ensemble, including "Spirit Dance," "Rhythm in Three," "Found Object Symphony," and others. Kari's vision is a community in which women and youth have a strong artistic presence, bringing the joy of rhythm and melody into their lives and into the larger world of dance, visual arts, theater, and festivals.
