The Primal Connection is an ethnically diverse acoustic world rhythm percussion ensemble that originated in Chicago. It is also a not-for-profit organization dedicated to using the drum in the healing arts, as well as, a way of enhancing cross-disciplinary education. The organization is also dedicated to improving cultural relations by using the universal language of percussion to illustrate our oneness of origin and unity of spirit.

The Primal Connection, a popular group in the Chicago area, has opened for the Chicago Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, was hired by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, performed at the Art Institute and had its own radio show.

The Primal Connection Foundation has pioneered the use of percussion as a cross-disciplinary educational tool to teach algebra concepts to fifth-graders, as well as geography, English, math, sociology and English as a second language. The band has also used percussion to give team-building workshops for corporations such as British Airways and Blue cross Blue Shield.

The Foundations Educultural Outreach Program is designed to encourage cross-ethnic understanding and mutual respect by teaching percussion arts, cultural aspects of world rhythms, teamwork and the joy of making music to young people

The Foundation also organizes community drum circles and works with health care professionals to produce drumming programs that utilizes the therapeutic and healing properties of the drum.

Other outreach initiatives include “hands on: percussion workshops for children, drum clinics, specialized programs for the mentally challenged, hearing impaired and children at risk. The organization also is introducing the aerobic and spirit lifting properties of hand drumming to nursing homes and retirement communities.

For more information contact Fred Leavitt at (863) 402-8238, e-mail: fredinc@tnni.net

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