UF School of Music Strengthens Global Ties Through Kenya Partnership
UF School of Music students at a graduate student conference sponsored by the Technical University of Kenya and held at the Kenya Cultural Centre. Pictured from left to right: Troy Thomas, Ph.D., David Tyson, Ph.D., Michelle Gibson, Ph.D., Jamie Burg, Ph.D., Michael Remy, MMME and Eric Murianki, Ph.D. Photo provided courtesy of Marshall Haning.
In 2007, School of Music Professor Emeritus Russell Robinson, Ph.D., initiated an “institutional linkage” program with Nairobi’s Kenyatta University that brings Kenyan postgraduate students to UF pursue their Ph.D. and deepen their professional development. Since then, UF School of Music has hosted five Ph.D. students from Kenya, each of whom has directed the Pazeni Sauti Africa Choir as a requisite of the educational exchange.
In recent years, UF In recent years, School of Music graduate students have utilized grant funding from the Master of Music in Music Education Online program to travel to Kenya to attend the Kenya Music Festival (KMF). Overseen by Kenya’s Ministry of Education, the KMF is a tiered competition that starts at the sub-county level and culminates in a two-week national festival each summer. More than 140,000 of Kenya’s top student performers participate in the KMF national tier, which includes 600 competitive categories spanning music, dance and elocution. The KMF grants flexible opportunities for MMME students to immerse themselves in the festival as both observers and participants.