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After years of research and community engagement, St. Olaf College Assistant Professor of Music Rehanna Kheshgi and her students will help bring Somali songs to life for a new generation by launching a website and hosting a pair of concerts this spring.

Through her project, “Somali Songs: Building Community through Sound,” Kheshgi seeks to empower Somali youth and foster sharing of intergenerational knowledge through listening, performing, and building public resources on Somali songs. With the support of a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC), Kheshgi has led the creation of a website that features Somali songs recorded by well-known artists and research on the tradition behind the music.

Those songs will be performed in two concerts this spring. “Fanka Soomaalida: An Evening of Somali Songs” will be held on April 27 at the Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault, Minnesota, and on May 11 in Urness Recital Hall at St. Olaf. Celebrated Minnesota-based Somali percussionist Harbi Mohamed Kahiye — the sole professional Somali drummer in North America — and student members of Kheshgi’s spring course Somali Community Engagement through Music will perform Somali songs from the 1960s to 1980s that reflect the beauty of Somali poetry and artistic expression. Both events are free and open to the public.

The website that Kheshgi’s students have helped develop will be launched at 5 p.m. on April 27 at the Paradise Center for the Arts, just ahead of the first concert. Audiences can explore the website, which features the songs to be performed, through a website scavenger hunt bingo challenge. Prizes will be awarded during the concert, which begins at 7 p.m. A number of community organizations that Kheshgi has worked with will be on hand before the concert as well, including Waano Learning Center, Diverse Voices Press, Haa Hijabs, and Surad Academy Charter School. The Rhythm of Somalia authors Becca Buck and Qorsho Hassan will also be present to promote their new book.

“My goal with this project is to use music as a way to make authentic connections with people and make a difference,” Kheshgi says. “St. Olaf is in an area with a really vibrant Somali community, and this project allows us to contribute to building up the community.”

“My goal with this project is to use music as a way to make authentic connections with people and make a difference. St. Olaf is in an area with a really vibrant Somali community, and this project allows us to contribute to building up the community.”

Assistant Professor of Music Rehanna Kheshgi

Miri Yang-Stevens ’27 is one of several St. Olaf students who have worked closely with Kheshgi to build the Somali Songs website. Sharing ideas and collaborating with community members on a project this significant has been rewarding, she says.

“I hope that more people become exposed to Somali music and for this to lead to a greater cross-cultural understanding,” she says. “I also hope that this website makes Somali music more accessible to the Somali diaspora in Minnesota.”

A foundation for community collaboration
Kheshgi began researching Somali music and culture when she was hired as St. Olaf’s first tenure-track ethnomusicologist in 2018. In order to transform the St. Olaf Music Department’s popular World Music course from a tour-of-the world survey into a locally grounded learning experience, Kheshgi reached out to performers and organizations in the Twin Cities whose musical traditions were underrepresented in the curriculum. By integrating a critical analysis of her process of engagement with local musicians into the course, Kheshgi prepares students to carry out similar work with their local communities wherever they may end up after graduation.

“I wanted to bring that experience of global music closer to students’ daily experiences in Minnesota,” Kheshgi says. “In the process of transforming that course to be locally grounded in case studies of music from around the world, I reached out to artists and institutions around the Twin Cities, and one of them was the Somali Museum of Minnesota.”

In November of 2019, Kheshgi organized an on-campus event that showcased a performance and interactive workshop by the Somali Museum of Minnesota’s dance troupe. The event was well-attended by students and faculty alike, and Kheshgi identified this widespread interest as a possible future direction of ethnomusicology research and instruction within the St. Olaf Music Department. She began working to establish the foundations of a new course by connecting with organizations such as the Somali Museum of Minnesota, teachers at Faribault High School who work closely with Somali students, and Waano, a Somali-owned after-school tutoring program in Faribault. Kheshgi chose these organizations based on their mutual support for increasing understanding of Somali traditional arts and culture through education.

“I wanted to bring that experience of global music closer to students’ daily experiences in Minnesota.”

Assistant Professor of Music Rehanna Kheshgi

During the spring of 2021, Kheshgi conducted a pilot dance workshop series with Somali students at Faribault High School thanks to the support of a released-time grant from St. Olaf’s Institute for Freedom and Community. This experience strengthened Kheshgi’s relationship with Somali Museum Dance Troupe director Mohamoud Mohamed, who led the workshops, and Faribault High School teachers and students who participated through dance, discussion, and reflection.

Kheshgi’s collaborative research work with music student Ruby Erickson ’21 (who is now pursuing a doctorate in ethnomusicology at Brown University), supported by a grant from St. Olaf’s Magnus the Good Endowed Fund, assisted in transforming these interactions into the foundation for the semester-long Somali Music and Dance course first offered in the spring of 2022. The concept of applied ethnomusicological research — which prioritizes a mutually beneficial outcome for both the researcher and the people or practice they are studying — was a driving force in the creation and goals of this course.

While establishing her vision for the course, Kheshgi worked closely with St. Olaf Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) Program Director Alyssa Melby. With Melby’s help, the course was able to obtain grant funding through the National Endowment for the Humanities American Rescue Plan.

“We had been wanting to do a lot more intentional programming with students and faculty around ethical engagement, and we felt like the pandemic stopped some of that work, but also really heightened why we need to be thinking about ethical engagement and intentional reflection,” Melby says.

A course devoted to studying Somali music and dance
To begin their work, students in the inaugural Somali Music and Dance course spent the first half of the semester learning about Somali culture — with an emphasis on music and dance — and how this culture has been transformed by members of the Somali diaspora to adapt to their new home in Minnesota. The class had the opportunity to participate in off-campus workshops and discussions with local Somali artists and organizations.

Students visited the Somali Museum of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where they were led on a tour by its founder, Osman Ali, and had the opportunity to participate in a Somali weaving and song workshop.

Students also had the opportunity to experience a performance by Kahiye and vocalist Anab Mohamed at a Somali music workshop co-sponsored by Kheshgi and Hamline University’s Catalyst Alternative Spring Break Program.

In the fall of 2022, a second Magnus Grant was awarded to Kheshgi for a collaborative project on “Education and Well-Being in Minnesota-Based Somali Communities.” She worked with biology major Gudon Ahmed ’25 to explore the question “How can Minnesota-based educational institutions better support Somali students?” Working with Gudon, who incorporated her own experiences as a student in the Faribault Public Schools system into the research project, deeply impacted Kheshgi’s approach to designing the second iteration of the course.

When Kheshgi’s course returned in the spring of 2023, so did the collaboration with Kahiye and Somali community members. Students in the course began holding listening sessions with local Somali community members to determine which songs to include on the website and in performances. They played songs for Somali community members to understand their connections to the music and their memories, and received critical insight.

“Women have shared memories of listening to these songs on the radio back in Somalia before the war, and listening to their mothers sing the songs they loved while preparing food,” Kheshgi says.

One woman spoke about how Hibo Nuura’s song “Soo noqo ado nabad ah” (Come back safely) would play on the radio and she would think of her soon-to-be husband who was away in Kenya, praying for his safe return. Another song, “Ceelbuur,” named after a town in Somalia, was recorded by singer and oud player Salaad Maxamaed Derbi, who lives in Faribault.

“It was only after we found out how much the songs are loved by our local Somali community members that we decided which songs to perform at the concerts this spring,” Kheshgi says.

Those performances will take place under the guidance of Kahiye, who is serving as the artistic director for the two concerts this spring. Kahiye, Kheshgi, and her students will perform seven songs at the concert, and the history and background of those pieces will be featured on the Somali Songs website. They will be joined by Carleton College ethnomusicologist Melissa Scott, who will play the oud. 

“It was only after we found out how much the songs are loved by our local Somali community members that we decided which songs to perform at the concerts this spring.”

Assistant Professor of Music Rehanna Kheshgi

Sayidcali Ahmed is a collaborator on the project who teaches at Surad Academy in Faribault — where the St. Olaf class has held Somali song workshops — and one of the program managers at Waano Learning Center. He describes one of the site’s most well-known songs, “‘Shimbiryahow Ma Duushaa?’ (Oh bird, do you fly?), as “soul-stirring.” Written by the esteemed poet Mohammed Ibrahim Warsame, widely known as “Hadraawi,” and set to music by the evocative composition of Abdikariim Ahmed “Jiir,” the song was recorded in the 1970s by the talented singer Xaliimo Khaliif Magool.

“In this timeless piece of Somali musical heritage, the protagonist, in her inability to connect with her beloved, seeks solace through a symbolic messenger — a bird — pleading for it to carry her message across the vast distances that separate them,” Ahmed writes. “Beyond its artistic merit, this song stands as a universal ode to the themes of love and separation, resonating through the ages within the rich tapestry of Somali cultural expression.”

It’s just one of the musical pieces that people will have the opportunity to learn more about on the Somali Songs website and hear at the concerts this spring.

Impactful experiences
In addition to their focus on Somali Songs, Kheshgi and her students continue to develop and strengthen meaningful relationships with Somali community partners. This year 12 students in Kheshgi’s Somali Community Engagement through Music course volunteer weekly at the Waano after-school tutoring program. The St. Olaf ESL Club, which Kheshgi advises, also sends weekly volunteers to Waano throughout the school year.

Zoe Esterly ’24 served as the president of the ESL Club, and she said the experience she had working with Waano helped sharpen the skills she will need as an English as a Second Language teacher. 

“I loved getting to know students and seeing them progress academically and socially. I got to know which students loved soccer, which students loved math, which students loved superheroes, and which students dreaded biology. It definitely helped me be creative in finding ways to support each student,” she says. “Professor Kheshgi’s ability to build relationships with and learn alongside the Somali families and community Waano works with has been a great example for me.”

Blake Ormond ’23, a music education major who now teaches at Community of Peace Academy in St. Paul, was in the inaugural Somali Music and Dance course in 2022. “This course definitely better prepared me to be a teacher because of my group’s work with the after-school tutoring program,” he says. “I also gained resources on how to better serve BIPOC students in the future, especially students of immigrants or students who are immigrants.”