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On Saturday, November 8, the atrium of the Northfield Public Library filled with the sounds of song, clapping, children’s laughter, and the rhythmic beat of Somali dance. St. Olaf College students, Somali community partners, and families from Faribault and Northfield gathered for Bridging Communities — a cultural celebration created through a new collaboration between St. Olaf, Somali educators and artists, the Somali Museum of Minnesota, Surad Academy, and Faribault Middle School.

The afternoon featured sing-alongs, vocal performances, readings, two dance workshops, a scavenger hunt, henna art, face-painting, traditional Somali snacks, and a drawing for prizes donated by community sponsors. 

The Bridging Communities event was the culmination of work by students in Somali Community Engagement Through Music, a 300-level Academic Civic Engagement (ACE) course taught by Associate Professor of Music Rehanna Kheshgi. The class is split into two groups: one of which spent the semester planning Saturday’s event, and the other seeing Oles step into the Surad Academy charter school’s classrooms to exchange knowledge about culture and music with middle school students. 

“Somali culture has been largely oral for generations,” Kheshgi says. “There isn’t a deep body of English-language scholarship on Somali music. My goal has been to collaborate directly with Somali partners in Minnesota who carry this knowledge through lived experience — and to create opportunities for students to learn alongside them.”

This year marked a shift from previous iterations of the course. The spring 2024 project culminated in a pair of concerts featuring students performing Somali love songs. This time, Kheshgi and her students envisioned something more participatory: a community event where families, elders, children, students, and teachers could take part together. 

“Instead of some people on stage and other people listening, we wanted everyone learning and celebrating together,” she says.

The concept for the event emerged when Angelica Linder, outreach manager at the Northfield Public Library, asked Kheshgi whether she would consider hosting a Somali culture event for local residents. Although Northfield has a small Somali population, Kheshgi wanted the experience to be community-driven — one that included and centered Somali families themselves, not an event about Somali culture planned without their input. 

The solution came through inter-community partnership. Surad Academy, a charter school serving primarily Somali American students in Faribault, opened its doors for weekly song-teaching visits from St. Olaf students. 

“The purpose of the visits was to engage with communities we’ve never engaged with before, and share this music with Somali students, while also navigating our identities as non-Somali persons teaching these songs,” Elizabeth Chen ‘27 says. “It was a struggle, but it was a challenge that was worthwhile — especially if you are to go into teaching in a community that you are not necessarily intrinsically connected to, but would like to incorporate elements of into your pedagogy.”

The culmination of these visits was the community event hosted in Northfield, where students were encouraged to bring their families to learn and sing along to the same songs with them. 

In addition, the Faribault Middle School Choir, led by St. Olaf alum Josephine Lynn ‘23, agreed to perform two pieces during the event from The Rhythm of Somalia, a collection of Somali children’s songs and games gathered by educators from Somali children in Burnsville. Somali children’s authors Nasra Noor and Habiba Mohamed joined to read from their books, and the Somali Museum of Minnesota sent its renowned dance troupe to teach traditional dances. 

For the St. Olaf students who planned, organized, and hosted the event as part of their coursework, the experience was immersive, energizing, and eye-opening. 

“I’d never really interacted with Somali music or the Somali community before,” says Leo Barks ‘27, a music performance major who served on the event-planning team. “This felt like a chance to learn something totally new; the culture, the music, and what it takes to create a community event from scratch.”

His classmate Lincoln Bramwell ‘27, a music and Spanish major, joined the teaching group at Surad Academy. 

“I’ve learned how to teach music to little kids, especially shy ones,” he says. “That’s a real skill — and it’s been meaningful to see kids connect to songs their parents grew up singing.”

St. Olaf students opened the festivities by leading a sing-along of “Arday baan Ahayoo,” one of the best-known Somali education songs of the 1960s. The song’s refrain — once played nationwide on Somali radio to encourage children to attend school — stirred immediate recognition among community members in the crowd. 

“I strive to go to school so I may repay the debt I owe my father and my mother,” Kaspar Czuk ‘26 explained as he translated the lyrics. “It’s about the importance of education and contributing to your community.”

The students demonstrated pronunciation — for example, the letter “x” is pronounced like a soft “h” — before leading the audience in call-and-response lines. By the time the instrumentalists joined in, the room was full of voices singing in Somali, many for the first time. 

For Lynn, now in her third year teaching choir and general music at Faribault Middle School, the event represented a powerful moment for her students. 

“One of my goals was to make the music program more accessible and representative of our student population,” Lynn shares. “One way I have seen other music teachers accomplish this was by incorporating music from the cultures of students in the building. I have sought out ways to do this in an authentic way through inviting in culture bearers, poets, and by having conversations with my students. Conversation and committed practice prepared us for this event.”

Her choir performed the Somali lullaby “Huuwaya Huuwa” (sung by the American Choral Directors Association Minnesota Honor Choir in 2024) and “Maanta Maanta” (a song celebrating Somali Independence Day — July 1), both from The Rhythm of Somalia.

“Middle school students generally have an understanding of the ‘Independence Day’ concept, so all students could relate to the message and help convey this idea of celebration,” Lynn says. 

As a former student of Kheshgi, Lynn felt the collaboration come full circle. 

“Working with her as a student helped give me a framework for how to collaborate in an equitable way,” she says. “And being a student in the same position as the students who created this event allowed me to have a better understanding of what the event creators were looking for. I have such appreciation and admiration for the work Dr. Kheshgi and her students are doing to uplift the different cultural backgrounds of people in the Rice County community.”

For Lynn, the most meaningful moments came from her students’ reflections. 

“Sometimes as performers, we get so caught up in the perfect presentation of music, and as an educator I also get caught up in the standards and music literacy I want students to understand — of course these are important, but music as a vessel to bring people together and learn about each other is just as valuable,” Lynn says. “One of my non-Somali choir students talked about how she has never done something like this before. She mentioned that she felt proud that she was able to present music to people who belong to the culture this music is from and how music as an act of service brought her joy. Having middle school students look beyond themselves is rare, and getting that takeaway reinforced the importance of events like these.”

Later in the afternoon, the atrium shook with the sound of feet and cheers as the Somali Museum of Minnesota led a dance workshop. Museum Artistic Director Mohamoud Mohamed introduced three traditional dances — Jaandheer, Saylici, and Dhaanto — and explained their cultural significance. 

“Jaandheer means taking a big step or leap,” he told the crowd as he demonstrated. “It’s performed at weddings, festivals, and celebrations — anything that requires excitement.”

He invited the audience to watch his fellow troupe members, before leading everyone into a circle. Within seconds, all stepped in time together, mimicking the sweeping motions of the dancers. 

It became one of the clearest expressions of the event’s mission: music, storytelling, and movement as points of connection across generations and cultures, rooted in joyful exchange. 

For Barks, the experience deepened his understanding of what he and his classmates had accomplished over the past semester. 

“It wasn’t just about making music,” he said. “It’s about creating spaces where people feel welcomed and connected.”

Kheshgi feels the lessons taught through her course reflect her belief in the transformative power of relationship-centered teaching. 

“With every detail of the event we are trying to embody the values of humility, care, and curiosity,” she says. “We worked very closely with our Somali partners to ensure that this event was respectful and inclusive to all parties, and when a room full of people — many of whom have never spoken a Somali word before — are singing along with us, it is a really empowering thing.” 

Chen says the experiences from this class will stay with her long after the semester ends. 

“I was skeptical of the concept of this class, just because I don’t know what the needs of the Somali community are, and there were assumptions we all had and a lot of fear about crossing the line. But those fears can prevent us from even attempting to bridge a gap, and this class has taught me how to take that first step of putting myself out there in an unfamiliar environment and discomfort, and find delight and joy in the discovery of culture. I can say I am now more excited than I have ever been about this class and what we’re doing. You see the effect of what you’re doing, you see how appreciative people are — and I didn’t know I could do that.”