Renowned musician to play Nbisiing Secondary

Nipissing University
News Release

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Nipissing University is pleased to welcome accomplished musician Claude McKenzie to North Bay on Thursday, December 6.

McKenzie is from the Innu Nation and is a former member of Kashtin, one of the most commercially successful musical groups in First Nations history.

He will be attending Nbisiing Secondary School on Nipissing First Nation as part of a joint initiative between the university’s Biidaaban Community Service-Learning (CSL) program and the high school.

“The Biidaaban CSL program was invited by the school to develop creative ways to encourage learning from a different perspective,” said Laurie McLaren, Acting Manager of Nipissing’s Biidaaban program. “We worked with the school to develop an after school guitar club and students from Nipissing’s Bachelor of Education program worked with the high school students three evenings a week throughout November to develop and enhance their guitar skills. The opportunity to bring in a guitarist as talented as Claude McKenzie is pretty amazing and he will surely inspire many students from Nipissing and from Nbisiing.”

From noon – 1:30, McKenzie will jam with Nbisiing student musicians and work out a piece for the public performance featuring traditional Native music styles. At 1:30 p.m. he will give a public performance featuring music and anecdotes from his own musical journey. At 3:30 he will participate in the after school guitar club with students from Nipissing University and students from Nbisiing Secondary School.

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