Once in a far distant country, somewhere to the north of Afghanistan there was a city inhabited entirely by the blind. One day the news came that an elephant was passing outside the walls of the city. Read More
The last stop was North Carolina where another album was recorded this time with Stephen Roach, a percussionist and hammer dulcimer player and a bunch of other young and talented musicians. Stephen and friends belong to a growing community of people www.aplacefortheheart.org who own a wonderful retreat centre in the heart of NC.
A highlight of the recording was impromptu drum pieces with a Cuban style conga player Peter Singles from Florida, Stephen playing Arabic percussion and Martin using African drums, a very special moment. This album should be available through their community and if you want a taster, listen to a couple of tracks at www.myspace.com/closertotheburning
Beloved
In the last few years, as we have spent time in North Carolina, we have really enjoyed the wonderful folk music that emanates from this area. If you have never heard the hammer dulcimer or the Appalachian dulcimer then you have missed out.
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September, England.
Martin has just finished a tour in England with Ruth Fazal from Toronto, Canada….. had a great time, her music is a little different as she is from a more classical background but she loves allowing space for improvisation. She has also written a classical Oratorio piece for the Jewish people, called Oratorio Terezin.
More info www.oratorioterezin.com
She found a book of children’s poems 8 years ago and God told her to weave a story of God’s heart for His people through this story book and the Hebrew scriptures …… it’s an incredibly powerful story and she has some amazing stories of what has happened through this project. It has now been performed with orchestra’s in Canada, the Czech Republic, Austria and in Israel on holocaust day.
29th Dec.-13th Jan 2005 San Diego & L.A., U.S.A.
We flew out to San Diego to be at the “City of Refuge” again (we were with them in Feb. ’04 and also 28th Sept.-4th Oct.). During our time there we led the team on retreat for 5 days and generally got involved with their weekly routine. This included packing up food to be distributed to the poor and homeless and visiting a large night shelter where we played music and chatted with the homeless. There were also two weddings of people who have been part of the project so Martin was seconded to play along with other musicians. The rest of our time was kept busy with helping people move house, drum circles and lots of one to one times with people from the team. As ever we left feeling that we had been amongst people of similar hearts and that we would be back…… Read More
In a world such as ours ... it is necessary to understand why a madrigal by Gesualdo or a Back Passion, a sitar melody from India or a song from Africa, berg's Wozzeck or Britten's War Requiem, a balinese gamelan or a Cantonese opera, or a symphony by Mozart, Beethoven, or Mahler, may be profoundly necessary for human survival ..."
With some nerves and trepidation we entered the imposing 9 foot high green school gates. “Who the f*** are you?” queried a young child ….. we had arrived at Vernon House! Read More
So what of our last trip ……well this was an amazing trip with many connections with people of a similar heart, a time of real encouragement, lots of laughter and generous hospitality. Thanks to Mark Riley who put this trip together and was a great comrade in mischief!!!! www.markrileymusic.com Read More
In the Czech Republic my wife and I were invited to a refugee camp. This camp had many people from many different cultures and backgrounds. Through the long process of governmental bureaucracy, it had left the people incarcerated with very little hope, losing their individuality and uniqueness to becoming a number in the system. I collect instruments from all over the world and as I played these different instruments people starting re-connecting with their own stories. A lady from Ghana heard an African rhythm and she found herself not able to keep still and with encouragement she was soon dancing before us all with all her might. Next 2 Indian men asked if they could sing a song from their village. The dancing and singing brought life to the other people watching and slowly, one by one, others emerged from the shadows to share songs, dances, verse and music. A mundane day had been changed into an amazing pageant of the stories and colours of the world in which we live in. A bridge of hope and belonging had encouraged the people and we later heard that that day had been a talking point for many days in the future.
Our involvement with a storytelling initiative called “The Telling Place” has encouraged us that the art of storytelling is still a profound way of passing on knowledge, wisdom, customs and inheritance (something indigenous peoples still retain). This wonderful creative art form is making a significant resurgence in the west not only in performance but in education, business and marketing.
Looking out over the nearside aircraft wing, the first golden rays of daylight pierce the distant horizon, as the air steward announces in kiswahili of our impending landing in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. I have travelled with a team of 15 to help with a conference, musical concerts and takeing supplies to village schools. The tannoy system crackles into life again, “Karibu”, welcome to Kenya. Read More
Leaving Entebbe airport in Uganda behind us, the seemingly never-ending vastness of Lake Victoria below, our destination was a small African country, Rwanda. Tucked just south of Uganda, west of Tanzania, north of Burundi and east of Zaire, this beautiful green land of a thousand hills was the scene of a devastating genocide just six years ago. Between half a million to one million people were massacred and two million became refugees at a time when this country was considered one of the most Christian in Africa, 90% of the population called themselves either Roman Catholic or Protestant. Read More
It is rainy season and as the plane flew towards the landing strip at Banjul, the capital city of The Gambia, verdant tropical forests of flat-topped acacia and baobab trees, flooded by seasonal rains fill the landscape. Lying at the western edge of Africa, surrounded on three sides by Senegal, its river defining the countries very existence, the Gambia is one of the poorest countries in the world. With a life expectancy of around 50 years and between 100-200 children in every 1000 dying before the age of five, the average western citizen is up to 100 times better off than their Gambian counterpart. I was about to be dropped into a fragile African nation of diverse cultural expressions. Read More
