The New Singing Wells website News
…e hope this will make it easier for you to find and explore our recordings of East African Traditional Music. Here are some of the added features of the new site: Stories Most of what we do is story-telling, in the music that we record, the pictures we take, the people that we meet and the journeys that we make – so we have split our stories into easy to read and find sections. Find them via the menu bar. Podcasts Our podcasts are now displayed wi…
The Singing Wells supports Ketebul Music’s ‘Kenya at 50’ project News
…at the other aspects of culture around the time of independence in Kenya. Currey was part of the team responsible for the publishing of the African Writers series of novels….
The Beat of Kenya News
…in Winnipeg, Canada. Andrea explained that she was planning an exhibition of traditional African musical instruments and during her research she had come across Singing Wells. We were able to provide Andrea with some information about the instruments and, importantly, some photos and videos of the instruments being played, which are from our field trip to Western Kenya in November 2011. The instruments now on display at the Manitoba Museum were d…
A quick summary of the Singing Wells Project News
…makes all this music available. We are Winyo. We are Akello. We are dozens of African musicians determined to keep this music alive. We are Andy and Vicki that raise the funds and produce the videos. If you like what you hear and see please visit us and support us. We are here to help. But we need help. And if you looked carefully in the videos, you’ll see the Nyatiti and you’ll hear Ayub Ogado who supports us and inspires us. We will leave you wi…
Victoria’s reflections on field trip to Northern Uganda News
…ing Wells On my last day in Uganda, just before I had to leave the rest of the team and travel back to London alone, Akello recorded one of her songs with the Watmon Cultural Troupe, in the gardens of the Airport Guesthouse. It’s one of my favourites and brings back happy memories of an amazing experience. Have a listen… Victoria Denison December 2012 More photos…….
The Influences Series from Singing Wells News
…is new material. We believe our Influences series will refresh the origins of East African music and make it discoverable to a new generation of music fans. Newly released Influences song – Missing March 2013 saw the release of an original track from Abubilla Music, re-mixed for the Influences series. The song is called (The only thing that’s) Missing and it was first recorded for the Abubilla Music album Misery Marmalade and other Spanish Jams. H…
The origins of Singing Wells Story
…ns putting a modern stamp on traditional music. A few thousand miles north of Nairobi, our band of musicians at Abubilla Music in London had similar concerns. Some of us had travelled through East Africa and we were astounded by the quality of the tribal music, but equally surprised to find how hard it was to access the music back in Britain. As the founder of Abubilla Music, I set out to find partners in East Africa who were committed to preservi…
Returning to Uganda in Autumn 2013 Story
…dan Music and The Pearl of Africa While our mission is to record the music of all of East Africa, we are continually drawn back to Uganda. This will be our third trip and we are convinced we will return again and again. While it is always hard to capture a million images and sounds in a single blog, we’ll try to summarize what keeps bringing us back… The individual voices The collective voices The exotic instruments The extraordinary dance, youth…
Meet our ‘Influences’ artists News
…world and enliven people to dance and sing to the sweet and melodic sounds of African songs and music. Winyo’s debut album ‘Benga Blues’ has recently been released. Click here to view on YouTube. Winyo with Mperwa Dancers from Kisoro, Uganda Winyo has joined the Singing Wells team of three recording field trips – Kenya (Coastal Region); SW Uganda and Kenya (Nyanza Province). Eddie Grey As an artist, Eddie Grey has been considered a fore runner in…
Akello sings ‘Influences’ songs for Singing Wells News
…t popular languages like Acholi, Luganda, Swahili and English..After years of working with a few of Uganda’s leading contemporary and world music greats such as Kaweesa, Susan Kerunen, Myko Ouma, Tshila and Kinobe Herbert..she is indeed a rare talent with a rich textured organic voice. Akello begins a new journey of performing her own music compositions that she chooses to call “Hybrid” a simple cross between urban and local sounds back home. …
Promotion of Batwa cultural music: UOBDU report March 2013 News
…ter project by Bwindi Mgahinga Conservation Trust where the Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda was the Chief Guest of Honour. In addition, this group has managed to set aside Saturdays of every week to meet and make practices on their cultural music and dance in order to meet its target “staging music shows” as the future plans of the group. GATERA Group Gatera men and women group takes the highest position in savings from their cultural p…
Northern Uganda: Day 6 – Soroti to Kampala (a driving story) Story
…ll this in the middle of a field trip in the middle of a van in the middle of an African night is a repeatable model that will take some time. We’re 50% of the way there we think. Better than we were but the best is still to come. As we write this in pitch black we’ve turned on to the Kenya road that links Nairobi to Kampala. We turned right toward Kampala and now are in bumper to bumper traffic. Strangely this is comforting as we know legions of…
An Evening with Mserego Mwatela Group News
…tela Massai, the founder of Msergo Mwatela Group, from the Coastal regions of Kenya. He originally performed with his father’s group and then he founded this group in 2007. They use a number of styles, most notably Sengenya, which we covered fully in our March 2011 field recordings in Malindi. We interviewed Swalhe Mwatela Massai and his grandson, Ali Tungwa : Q to the grandfather: In contrast to Uganda, we have seen many villages in Kenya where…
How music archives can help communities News
…Africa for everyone to hear but only after we have received the permission of the performers to do so, of course. High quality field recordings of indigenous music groups are a valuable resource for those want to learn from these traditional cultural expressions. They have the potential to empower communities to continue to perform and educate future generations. Recordings must be professionally archived as history shows us that they can have a h…
Northern Uganda: Day 5 – from Pakwach to Soroti (a road trip) Story
…about the middle of the road, where the vehicles are. There are two types of African roads. r oads in the day. And roads in the night. Day roads are funny. Every pot hole, every large crater makes you chuckle. You can drive around them or slow down and go through them. Our Ketebul team will explain that the worse the road, the less support the locals have given to the party in power. A lot of people don’t support the party in power it seems – at…
ATTA is following Singing Wells News
…during our field recording trips. I met Nigel Vere Nicoll, Chief Executive of the African Travel & Tourism Association and explained a little about Singing Wells and our aims to record and celebrate the cultural music heritage of East Africa. It seems Nigel liked what I told him! Operations Manager Lina Vaiksnoriene has been in touch and ATTA are now following our progress on our website and Facebook. We are delighted that Singing Wells is feature…