The Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble fuses sounds from countries that share musical roots.

The ensemble’s Traveling Songs: Music of the African Diaspora blends music from countries like Cuba, Ghana and Brazil. The event will also include performances by berimbau group Projeto Arcomusical and the NIU Ghanian Ensemble.

Michael Mixtacki, percussion professor and Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble founder, said he wanted to showcase the individual group’s similarities.

“I wanted to put it together not only to sort of highlight the fact that these types of music are all coming from the same roots …,” Mixtacki said. “To me, I thought, ‘What better way [than] to put them all in one show instead of everyone having their own concert and forgetting that we’re all related in some way?’”

Mixtacki said the music is influenced “by or out of African religious traditions in Cuba.”

“Everything that the Afro-Cuban Folkloric Ensemble plays is a direct result of the slave trade,” he said. “It’s very much like an Afrocentric concert with looking at it from a New World perspective.”

Bill Sherman, sophomore percussion performance major, said diverse music is what brought him to NIU and the ensemble.

“We get to play a bunch of different music that you wouldn’t normally get to play,” Sherman said.