Why “Singing Wells”? News
…itnessed an extraordinary sight while travelling in Kenya – the real-life singing wells of the Samburu tribes people. The singing wells of the Samburu During the dry season, Samburu herdsmen (and boys) draw much needed water for their cattle from deep wells which they have dug in the parched river bed. As they pull water from these wells they begin to sing, a different song eminating from each well. The animals appear from the bush, seeming to…
A Year in Review March 2011 – March 2012 News
…now approaching the start of our second full year of field visits for the Singing Wells Project. It seems like a good time to step back to review the goals of the project and our progress and learnings. For those of you who are new to our work, this is a good place to start. OVERVIEW OF THE FIRST YEAR OF ACTIVITY: By the end of March 2012, we will have completed the following sets of field visits: March 2011 in Malindi, Kenya: This was our our pil…
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. …
AMF receive grant to fund Batwa recordings News
…Institute of International Education has approved a grant to support the Singing Wells trip to Uganda to record the music and dance of the Batwa people. We are delighted that our proposal was successful and that the IIE agreed with our rationale for taking the project to the Batwa to increase awareness of their unique music and dance traditions. In our proposal, we outlined our rationale as follows: “The overall aim of the Singing Wells project i…
Recording music & dance of the Batwa News
…d Organsation for Batwa Development in Uganda. Rationale for taking the Singing Wells project to Kisoro, Uganda The overall aim of the Singing Wells project is to identify, record, preserve and promote the cultural music heritage of East Africa. In taking the project to Uganda to document and record the traditional music and dance of the Batwa, we can help to stem the tide which is threatening to obscure the music traditions of this ethnic gro…
Paul Kelemba – Chairman of Ketebul Music News
…Ketebul Music is continuing its documentation and archiving of East African music genres, both past and contemporary. We are now in a strong partnership with The Singing Wells Project (SWP) whose goals are similar to ours in the preservation of the region’s music heritage. …
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…the recording sessions themselves, which involves 2 sound enginers, 2 video engineers, 1 local logistics expert, 2 trainees to learn mobile recording and 2 artists to develop the influences sessions and c) to upgrade archiving hardware and software and to fully training the Singing Wells team (and future trainees) in archiving. We are seeking funds from NGO’s, Corporate and Individual Sponsors and will work with sponsors to develop Phase Three in…
What we learned from the pilot phase News
…t of storms, with concerns about theft, etc… Test the Team: We would be training the Ketebul team on the new equipment and we would be seeing how we all did in the field in terms of logistics and audio and video capture. Test the Concept: Singing Wells is about the archiving of traditional East African music and ensuring that these traditions are kept alive in contemporary music. We needed to see if this was a worthwhile concept. 2. And, how did y…
Meet the team from Ketebul Music News
The Ketebul Music team is critical to supporting the Singing Wells project and proved their extraordinary capabilities during our March Pilot. Here’s the team: Tabu Osusa, Founder of Ketebul Music, on the Board of Singing Wells: Tabu will lead site selection and take overall ‘on the ground’ responsibility for the Singing Wells Project Paul Kelemba (Maddo): The Chairman of Ketebul Music will help with all the media aspects of Singging We…
More on the launch of the Ketebul Music website News
…ite right on brief and within a tight budget which is a big bonus for the Singing Wells funds. Here are a few words from Wesley Burden about the challenge we gave them…… “Ketebul Music required a website design that delivered a strong sense of the colourful music of East Africa and the traditions that their non-profit organisation aims to help preserve. Using our experience from working with Abubilla Music and Sideways Recordings we were well plac…
Ketebul Music website launched News
Great news to report today. Initial funds to the Singing Wells project have been used to complete our first objective and we are delighted to report on the launch of the new Ketebul Music website. When Abubilla Music and Ketebul Music first came together we decided the most pressing need was for a dynamic website which would show the work of the Ketebul artists in their full glory and we think we’ve succeeded in our goal. Take a good look around…