By GEORGE ORIDO
With over 7, 000 items presented in 440 classes in 11 halls performed in 11 days by over 97,000 students, the annual Kenya Schools and Colleges Music festivals remains the largest music jamboree in East and Central Africa.
This means the students would fill to capacity Nyayo National Stadium two and half times! This year’s theme was "Fostering National Pride and Patriotism".
Many Kenyan artistes have honed their skills in music, dance, poetry, and pubic speaking in this festival that has lasted 85 years and is still growing.
Among these include Vincent Ateya, a veteran radio journalist, who came back to the festival as an arranger and producer with Nairobi’s Riruta-based Precious Blood School.
In the formative stages, only 300 participants took part in a day dominated by white settler students.
"Not even the devastations of the Second World War dampened the spirit of the festival when it was held at the Kenya Cultural Centre incorporating the Kenya National theatre," observed Prof Caleb Okumu the festival Chairman at the opening of the countrywide event in Nakuru.
Nakuru was the first to host the festival outside Nairobi since rotation policy was put in place eight years ago and this was its third time as a host mainly due to the unparalleled facilities offered by Lions Group of Schools.
It is here that pupils and students from every part of the country communed to showcase the very best that Kenya has to offer in the music arena.
Moreover, it was both entertaining as well as educative moment for many.
"This was my first time to be in Nakuru. I had studied about the town in Geography classes only," said Wilfred Wanjala who had just played the Siriri, a Luhya version of the Luo Orutu.
His skills were pedigree and any professional outfit would find his invaluable performance admirable.
Colour and splendour defined the performances. The more one watched, the more one yearned to watch and listen to the next. Such was its intoxicating power.
Take for instance an African folk dance from the Mijikenda, Pokomo, Taita and Akamba category. Mlaleo and Harambee Primary schools from Mombasa, both in blue, red, and white costumes presented the Giriama dance accompanied with syncopated formations and powerful singing.
The snap change to movements in coordinated fashion left the audience asking for more.
Then comes Ahero girls from Nyanza in their trademark Owalo skirts and beaded hats. Their Luo dodo dance is a contrast to the Giriama one with graceful and elegant moves that reminds one of a peacock spreading its colourful feathers like a queen.
So was Gusii Institute’s Kisii dance with moderated dance steps accompanied by the obokhano celebrating a season of bumper harvest.
To add to the diversity that is Kenya, Melvin Jones Academy from Nakuru presented a Hindu Bajan song, Singh Sukh Keti Sab Sathi, Dukh Men Na Koi, which translates to in your happiness everyone is your friend, when you are down only God is with you’.
Spirituality too made it to the stage with a Negro Spiritual being a star attraction. Depicting the suffering and humiliation of Black Americans during the slave trade, the songs are full of petition to God to redeem them from bondage as well as solace and comfort to each other. Oh Mary don’ you weep, don’ you mourn, goes a section Kenyatta University’s rendition of Rocking Jerusalem.
The distinct lingua Franca in the Negro spiritual is the Pidgin English and crescendo rendition.
When Riokindo Boys presented Sudu, based on the Gikuyu Akorino sect idioms, they easily connected African religious worship to the Western Christian.
Other folk songs and dances that enriched the festival were from Maasai-Rendile-Njemps class, Kipsigis-Nandi- Tugen-Elgeyo-Sabaot, Meru-Kikuyu-Embu and Somali-Borana.
Across our borders, there were dances from Bagisu, Buganda and Karamoja dances from Uganda. Dances from Merille community from Ethiopia that carries regular raids against Kenya’s Turkana also found audience.
The youngest African nation South Sudan also had its dances presented with a message of peace and freedom.
One worry was the domination of the festival by girls.
"We saw few boys during the presentations especially at the poetry sessions," observed Prof Okumu Bigambo the head of Arts and Social Sciences at Moi University.
He was adjudicating with colleagues Calvin Adwar, Dr Simon Peter Otieno, Wycliffe Indakwa and Michael Kiguta.
Equity Bank sponsored poems that depicted the blight of bright children from humble family backgrounds.
"We should encourage the students to perform to their colleagues when they return as this may motivate others out there," suggested Philemon Kibiru the bank’s representative as he presented cheques to winners in the "Wings to Fly Category".
Other issues captured in the performances included governance, environmental conservation, family, relationships, constitutionalism, poverty, urbanisation, ethnicity, regional cooperation and peace and conflict, to mention but a few.
The Director for Quality Assurance and Standards Enos Oyaya slapped a one-year ban on one school for fielding an ineligible student.
Education Minister closed the festival in a Winners Concert attended by the wife of US Ambassador to Kenya, Mrs Judy Gration, accompanied by the Embassy Cultural specialist Ken Wakia.
Winners later entertained President Mwai Kibaki at State House gardens. During the State House gala the President urged Kenyans to get into the habit of buying original art products including music CDs.
This, he said, will help build artistes and ensure growth of the industry.
"I direct the relevant enforcing agencies to effect copyright laws and deal with those involved in piracy," Kibaki ordered.
According to a World Intellectual Property Organisation research released last year, the Copyright industry also known as the creative economy, contributes five per cent of the total Kenya’s GDP.