Victoria Denison Staff Profile
…in September 2010 to help establish the Singing Wells project. In order to support the project, Victoria set up The Abubilla Music Foundation, a company limited by guarantee, and then managed the application for charitable status with the Charity Commission for England and Wales. (Charitable status was achieved in June 2011). As well as acting as administrator to the Trustees, Victoria is the UK Project Manager for Singing Wells. Working closely w…
Elgon Ngoma Troupe Group
…trade – Julius’s dream is to open up a hair and beauty studio so they can support the bride with her beauty and music. He hopes the troupe will give them opportunities to travel away from their homes, but also to preserve the traditions of Eastern Uganda to the rest of the world. ——– You can contact Julius at juliuswolimbwa@gmail.com or PO Box 2254 Mbale, Uganda You can find the Troupe on Facebook here. You can watch a video about the group here….
3. Background of the Naizungwe drums Story
…ties were and still are organized on clan system. One ethnic society has a number of clans where each clan has a leader – clan leader. Each of those clans had identifying regalia and one of them are drum rhythms that symbolize the general belief of that clan. The Basoga ethnic society from the Eastern region of the country is organized according to clans. Eleven clans are royal; they are the leaders and the rest are not. One of the clans is the ba…
2. Naizungwe Drums – progress report 1 Story
…t read our introduction to the project, do so here). A drum maker has been contacted, the correct trees have been sourced and cut down, the logs have been hollowed out and the skins have been formed. One of the early milestones was finding a tree out of which to craft the largest of the drums, no trivial task given the size and type of tree required. Here is our first video, James Isabirye talking about the tree and introducing the project: https:…
1. Introducing the Naizungwe drums Story
…val of the entenga royal drums of the Buganda kingdom starting in 2015 and contacted Singing Wells with the hope that we would support him with funding for his new project. We are excited to announce that we have agreed to support James in his endeavours and will be posting about the project’s development, which has been under way for a month now. James gives some background about his inspiration for starting this project: “I led the revival of en…
Day 3: Monday, 2017 February 20th Story
…o pursue music professionally. It was Leo’s mom that finally intervened to support Leo’s musical ambitions, when Leo turned 20, noting that she had married a musician and loved a musician’s life. Leo calls his style “Swahili Blues” which was inspired mostly by his dad’s music, the music of Salim Abdalah (a great Tanzania guitarist) and his Mzee Morris’s drums. Ketebul Music first met Leo in Nairobi and helped produce his third album Bangili, which…
Day 2: Sunday, 2017 February 19th Story
…ing for three reasons: We had the whole day so were able to record a large number of songs and do an “Influences” session. This gave the village children time to get to know us and understand our mission. By the end they were singing along to all the songs. In addition to being a professional musician, Leo also teaches music to school children so he is a natural with kids. On all the songs that he did, he had the whole village singing and laughing…
Day 1: Saturday, 2017 February 18th Story
…ts are quite central to Tanzanian dance as are acrobatic acts. We spoke to Leo about this. “Yes, we love to bring comedy to our music. If you look at most circus troupes that are touring in the world today, a huge number of the acrobats and clowns are Tanzanian.” https://youtu.be/C-4PdHne3Jc We’ll leave you here. We checked in to our hotel, the Mediterraneo Hotel, Dar es Salaam. Tomorrow we head off for Bagamoyo….
Fundraiser for Matthew Watmon News
…you are based in East Africa, please get in touch with Matthew’s brother, Constantine Odida ((MTN) +256-782-236-742 and (Airtel) +256-704-261-037). If you are based elsewhere in the world, we have created a GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-mathew-watmon The donors of Abubilla Music Foundation, who support the Singing Wells project, will match these contributions up to £1000 so we greatly appreciate your support at this time. We a…
Our journey to the Royal Drums: in the words of James Isabirye Story
…ation started everything. We needed to revive these trumpets. I got UNESCO support, I got Singing Wells support and gradually, we formed a group. Singing Wells filmed them in 2013 and helped us tell their story. We also invested in the farmers – James Lugolole is coordinating them to grow the gourds and we are building new trumpets (we now have about 20). And finally, James Lugolole is helping train the new musicians and we now have 4 separate gro…
Central & Eastern Uganda: Day 4, Part 1 – Reflections Story
…hat they are missing – but the local communities must decide if and how to support this music on a sustainable basis. Step 4: if there is support, build the infrastructure. This involves seeds for gourds for trumpets, or drum-making for drums. Inevitably something needs to be invested in the infrastructure. Step 5: Bring on the young. Inevitably, you then need to bring on the people to learn and enjoy this music. And here we had an interesting deb…
Support for the Elgon Ngoma Troupe News
One of our favourite artists, the Elgon Ngoma Troupe, is seeking sponsorship for a new piggery on their project. The piggery will allow the troupe to establish a sustainable form of income for the project, which houses children from disadvantaged backgrounds through performance of traditional music, through breeding and meat production. Donate to Elgon Ngoma’s gofundme page here! And you can watch one of their brilliant performances, recorded on…
Singing Wells Youtube Channel hits 2.5Million views News
…our work is having. We want to take this opportunity to thank you all for supporting us over the last few years, and for creating such a thriving community in the comments below. As we build towards our ten year anniversary in 2021, we are thrilled to know that we have the support of such an engaged audience. Here’s a few of the highlights from our channel. First place on the view count – at 272,000 views, goes to our awesome session with Otieno…
Rediscovering the lost Royal Drums of the Buganda Kingdom: Day 1, Uganda Story
…Drums of the Buganda Kingdom. Along with flutes, trumpets, strings and xylophones, the Entenga were part of a set of ‘royal instruments’ and much of the music was lost in 1966 when the palace of the Buganda Kingdom was attacked by government troops. The palace and instruments were destroyed, the King exiled, the royal musicians disbanded and much of the music forgotten. In 2013, we considered any idea of reviving the Entenga to be very unlikely, b…
The Return of Bigwala News
…tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ai9y5pkl6E According to Atlas Obscura, this support has allowed the seeds of this unique gourd, which were thought to have been lost, to be rediscovered and grown. Now over 100 students have been trained in building the instruments, and have played at two royal celebrations. There seems to be a promising future for this important thread in the tapestry of Uganda’s cultural history. Sources: https://www.atlasobscura.c…
Central and Eastern Kenya: Days 5-11:An Interview with Gregg Story
…make this available. We need to think about rich Kenyans and how they can support the music of their village with our help. We need to think about corporates and get them off the popular big number kick they are on and get them to work on authentic things. You guys can get better and better at producing videos, but until we make this bigger and more sustainable, the project is always one heart attack a way from stopping. But let me end simply – t…