Day 3: From Nairobi to Kigali to Kisoro Story
…a songs are about the ‘Parcs.’ Kisoro is quite a small town, population 12,000. On a map we are about as far west and south in Uganda as you can go. Traveller’s Rest: We stayed at the Traveller’s Rest, a hotel famed for being a meeting place for gorilla observers. They write about this on their website: “In 1955 Travellers Rest was bought by Walter Baumgartel, and quickly became a meeting place for people interested in the mountain gorilla. Amongs…
Kenya (Coast): Day 4 – the road back to Nairobi Story
…I joined as apprentice in 2005 and I was 23. The cultural side started in 2007. We started the spot light on Kenya music and other initiatives with Ketebul Productions, the Ministry of Culture and Alliance Francaise. We picked artists from all over Kenya to create an album. This is first move to culture things. Tabu was on the committee for Spot light and he would go out to select folks for the later recordings but the recording happened at the Go…
Day 1: The very first field recording day for Singing Wells Story
…Chinese Emperor’s in the 1400’s. Sita is a very small village with about 200 people; we recorded in a subset of the village, where all of Bado‘s brother’s and sisters lived with their families. Bado is the fourth son of Nyerere Wa Konde, who runs the Nyerere Wa Konde Music Club and is the village elder. To reach the village, you go 15 clicks and then another 2 on a dirt road. There are about 7 houses, two cows, lots of chickens, groves of pea tre…
Guy Morley – No Nation News
…Guy Morley is music programmer for the Big Chill festival – one of the highlights of the UK’s cultural calendar, and is the founder of No Nation, an independent arts programming, production and promotion company. No Nation has developed links across East Africa and has recently worked on a project for Sound and Music looking at the influence of early American country music in Africa. …
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the n…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…s lurked in the background with brotherly advice. March 26, 2011, about 22.00 hours, JKIA Nairobi. Ketebul had partnered with Abubilla on the Singing Wells Project, just about the best thing, in my view, that has happened to the dwindling fortunes of Kenyan traditional genres of music. Tabu and I were at the airport to receive James Jimmy Allen and Andy Patterson from Abubilla. I’d met Andy towards the end of 2010 on his first visit to Africa and…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…Winyo, Bado and his father took a Bado composition (yes, sounding like any American group) and turned it into something truly amazing by combining the best of old and new. The Magic Moment on Day 1 when it all seemed worth it. We took a simple (very American sounding song) from Bado and blended it with his Dad’s styles to make something really special 3. And Lessons? What Need to Improve? We were glad we did the pilot because we did learn a lo…