Ancient Ways’ Tashinga Marimba performs at last year’s Music in the Park. This year, the organization’s Chipindura Marimba will play with the concert scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday. (File photo by Eric Niemann)

Music in the Park’s first weekend concert of the season is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday at Philomath City Park with a performance by Chipindura Marimba.

The free concerts are staged in the Randy Kugler Community Hall and gazebo area. Those attending are encouraged to bring lawn chairs or blankets to sit on.

Chipindura Marimba is one of three groups organized by Corvallis-based Ancient Ways, an organization that provides opportunities to study and play the marimba music of Zimbabwe.

The Chipindura Marimba group focuses primarily on mbira-based music, defined as a mystical type of music that has been played for over a thousand years by certain tribes of the Shona people, a group that forms the vast majority of the population of Zimbabwe and extends into Mozambique.

The concerts, hosted by the Philomath Park Advisory Board, are free but donations are encouraged to benefit the Philomath Performing Arts Benefit Fund, a nonprofit foundation established to fill the needs of band and music programs in the local school district.

Performances continue through August on the third Thursday and last Sunday. Remaining concerts include Revel’n (June 20), DRTR (June 30), Tin Can Alley (July 18), Barrie Dempsey Duo (July 28), The Nettles (Aug. 15) and Family Tradition (Aug. 25).

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