On the eve of our very first field recording trip….. Story
Greetings from Nairobi. We arrived on Saturday and spent Sunday at Ketebul, meeting the team and then recording a ‘Hall of Fame Concert’ that Tabu had arranged at Sippers. The music was fantastic and brought to life what the Singing Wells Project is all about. Let’s focus on the music. After all, it is all about the music and the concert that Tabu organised to celebrate the best in East African Music. This was the concert (actually Tabu called it…
Nick Abonyo (the ‘clapper-man’) News
…While on the road in Kitale, we interviewed Nick who is working as an intern at Ketebul Music. This is Nick’s second Singing Wells field recording trip where he is learning how to use the mobile recording equipment whilst also acting as photographer. He is now officially in charge of the ‘clapperboard’ – a role he is relishing….
Why “Singing Wells”? News
…We often get asked why we have called our project ‘Singing Wells’. The inspiration for the name came when Jimmy witnessed an extraordinary sight while travelling in Kenya – the real-life singing wells of the Samburu tribes people….
Recording music & dance of the Batwa News
Phase 4 of the Singing Wells project starts next month with a field visit to the Kisoro district of Uganda to record the music and dance of the Batwa people. The Batwa, historically a nomadic, forest dwelling community of hunter-gatherers, are widely acknowledged to have been the first human residents of the forest areas which stretch across much of what is now Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC. In recent history however, the Batwa have become a di…
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
In this note, we provide an overview of the Singing Wells Project, the results of our March Pilot and next steps leading to our November sessions. We are pleased to report that the March Pilot confirmed the basic building blocks of the Singing Wells Project: a) mobile recording in the villages works and creates great performances, b) we can bring contemporary artists and traditional musicians together to create wonderful new music and c) we ca…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
Paul Kelemba (Maddo), Chairman of Ketebul Music, reporting back from the pilot programme….. When Tabu Osusa and I at Ketebul Music, along with our backers at Ford Foundation, set out to document Kenyan music genres from mid last century and offer them in easy to read, listen and view mediums to today’s audiences, young and old, we were trying to fulfill our dreams of preserving our music heritage for prosterity. We have so far produced two packag…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
In this blog, Steve Kivutia, Project Manager for Singing Wells, gives us his reflections of the March Pilot. We’ve added pictures and more importantly sound samples to his reviews, so well worth a listen! We are back in Nairobi after a week in the field recording material for the pilot phase of the Singing Wells project. This was a culmination of months of planning and exchange of email correspondence between Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music. D…