ELYSE GRIECO
Assistant Life & Arts Editor
On April 27, 2018, the Fredonia community lost a teacher, friend and amazingly talented musician.
Bernard Woma was only 51 years old when he lost his battle to cancer.
Woma hailed from Hiineteng, a village located in Northwestern Ghana.
By the age of two, he was already exposed to his love for music when he started playing the Gyil, also known as the Ghanaian Xylophone.
He eventually became known as a master of the instrument and in 1989 joined The Ghana Dance Ensemble at The University of Ghana as the solo gyil artist.
Since then, Woma’s achievements have been astronomical.
He has shared the stage with artists like Yo Yo Ma and Maya Angelou.
He also had the honor of being the cultural resource person for the Obama family when they visited Ghana in 2009.
One of his greatest achievements was his establishment of The Dagara Music Center (DMC).
DMC is a private school in Ghana that takes pride in teaching the ins and outs of African music and dance.
He soon became a renowned mentor to young African musicians through his teachings.
In 2008, Woma received a bachelor’s degree in international studies with a minor in art administration and history from SUNY Fredonia.
Thomas Bingham, one of Woma’s colleagues at Fredonia, still remembers how he felt the first time he saw Woma perform.
“I remember seeing him in performance before I met him. My first impression at that time was something [along the lines of] the order, ‘Wow! This guy’s the real deal!’ I was used to hearing authentic African polyrhythmic drumming on recordings from the Ethnic Folkways label. But most African drumming and percussion I had heard in person, mostly by American drummers, had been rather tepid, lacking the energy and authority of the recorded music I had heard,” said Bingham. “Bernard’s performance ranked alongside these ethnomusicological discs, adding the power and lifeforce that I came to recognize as being the very fiber of Bernard’s being.”
Woma taught African music and ran the African music program at Fredonia.
He also helped establish a Ghana study abroad program and collaborated with the school’s dance program.
Bingham said, “I doubt the Fredonia School of Music would have developed and sustained its rich delvings into world percussion to the extent that they have . . . With the encouragement and facilitation of Dr. Stonefelt, Bernard opened the door for increased attention to the world’s music at Fredonia.”
Shelyce Fitzgerald, a sophomore applied music major with a concentration in voice, recalls seeing Woma around Mason Hall.
“He was one of the greatest musicians who had a lot of love for his craft of drumming,” she said. “It’s so sad to hear that he has passed.”
Those who knew Woma can agree that his charisma set him aside from the average person.
“Among the things I admired about Bernard Woma was his open personality, his sense of humor, his willingness to give of himself, his tireless advocacy to pass on his knowledge,” said Bingham. “It’s difficult to to accept that someone with so much energy and commitment had to leave us at such a relatively young age.”
Although Woma was not originally from Western New York, he was more than just a visitor.
I think it’s important to note that he loved Fredonia,” said Bingham. “Oh, he would joke about the cold wintry weather in ‘Freeze-onia,’ but he got a couple undergrad degrees here while still teaching and performing, some of his family members still live in Fredonia, and he continued to return to Fredonia whenever he could. He was from Ghana, of course, but he was also ‘from’ Fredonia.”
Woma’s legacy is one that will not be forgotten.
Fredonia held a special event, “Fredonia African Drumming Ensembles: Dedicated in Memory of Bernard Woma” on Tuesday in his honor.