Shannon Holland

Shannon L. Holland is a talented teacher and performer of the djembe traditions of West Africa. He began his study of the djembe thirty years ago at the tender age of 6 and has developed into one of Tennessee’s most talented traditional percussionists.  Shannon was the percussion director of the Global Education Center in Nashville for eighteen years where he created a curriculum, La Voix du Djembe, on The Great Mali Empire and djembe traditions for school residencies and for on-site youth programming at the Center. As part of the Center’s music program, he created and directed a children’s drum ensemble, Les Enfants du Djembe; a teen ensemble, Djembefole; and a professional adult ensemble, NYAMA.

Shannon has studied with some of the greatest African drum masters in the world, including Mamady Keita, Famoudou Konate, Bolokada Conde, Alli Sylla, Ladji Camara, Babatunde Olatunje and Madou Dembele, to name a few.  He won a scholarship to the Djembe Institute at the University of North Carolina in 1998 where he studied with twelve master drummers and where he and two of his young students were among four people selected from 165 participants to perform with the masters in the grand finale.  In the summer of 2000 he traveled to Belize as part of a cultural arts exchange, where he and his percussion ensemble studied steel drumming and the African drumming of the Garifuna.  He has also studied extensively with guest artists from Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea who have been in residence at the Global Education Center.  Prior to joining the Center in 1997, he drummed with various groups around Nashville as well as in New Orleans.

Most recently, Shannon embarked on a three-year sabbatical from the Global Education Center to create his own drum-building business, Gorilla Drums, and to explore other options for his talents, including an outreach program for at-risk youth titled A Drum and A Dream, drawing on his own experiences as a troubled teen who found a positive outlet in West African drumming and a sanctuary from his sometimes troubled life. His greatest desire is to take this dynamic and powerful art form to students whose lives mirror his preteen and teen years with a hope that he can share this gift of empowerment and survival with others.