Sad News from Kenya News
…ear to all of those keeping track with the Singing Wells project. Some sad news. Okumu K’Orengo, one of the musicians we recorded in Kenya as part of the Singing Wells trip, had passed away. He was a master of the Nyatiti and performed for us in the village of Aluny, his final track on the day being a funeral dirge. We send our sympathies and condolences to his family and friends at this sad time. Here is an audio excerpt and video from his perfor…
AMF receive grant to fund Batwa recordings News
We have just heard the good news that the 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…
Singing Wells Project News Update News
…OCTOBER 2011 NEWS: Here is the latest news and itinerary for Phase 4 – the Batwa and Luo music recording trip in November. Click on the image to download the PDF: …
Abubilla Music release fourth album News
…ng Canasta Club will play tracks to a (hopefully) admiring audience – more news about that to follow. Click on the cover for a sneak preview – the track ‘Breathe’ performed by the Singing Wells Project’s very own Andy Patterson……. Importantly, the album also includes the global remix of an original Abubilla track ’71 Hours to Monday’ which has been released to promote the Singing Wells project and help raise funds for the 201…
AMF News Up-Date News
…There’s some exciting developments happening with all our projects and partners. Take a look at our news update here: …
May 2011 – Jimmy reports back on the pilot phase News
…etter to ‘go to the music’ then try to bring all these talented musicians 900 kms to Nairobi. In addition, we confirmed that Ketebul absolutely has the right set of sound and video engineers to lead these sessions in the future – they have all now been fully trained and have already begun to record sessions on their own. They will be leading the November sessions. If you are interested in the Ketebul’s team’s views of the sessions click on any of…
Lake Turkana Cultural Festival 2011 News
…allow them to undertake the trip to this remote area of North West Kenya, 800 km from Nairobi and home to the Turkana and Samburu tribes and the original ‘singing wells’. When Steve Kivutia (Ketebul Music) presented the idea of recording music at the Festival to the AMF, it seemed a perfect fit with the objectives of the Singing Wells project and the trustees were happy to approve a grant to cover the costs of travelling to the Festival with the n…
Discovering music roots with SWP News
…s lurked in the background with brotherly advice. March 26, 2011, about 22.00 hours, JKIA Nairobi. Ketebul had partnered with Abubilla on the Singing Wells Project, just about the best thing, in my view, that has happened to the dwindling fortunes of Kenyan traditional genres of music. Tabu and I were at the airport to receive James Jimmy Allen and Andy Patterson from Abubilla. I’d met Andy towards the end of 2010 on his first visit to Africa and…
More Ketebul voices…Steve reports from the field News
…or lunch. Everyone had some food apart from Tabu. I have known Tabu since 2005, and I can count the number of times I have seen him having a meal on 1 hand! After refueling car number 02 (it must have been guzzling the fuel because of the AC), we set off for the second leg of our journey, Voi to Mombasa. Salif Keita’s ‘M’bemba’ CD and Winyo’s in production CD ‘Benga & Blues’ proved to be the favorite cruise music as we kept on switching between th…
£25K donation from Abubilla Music Foundation News
…undraising goals. A donation from the The Abubilla Music Foundation of £25,000 has been allocated by the trustees to the Singing Wells project. This has meant that all expenditure on the development of the Ketebul Music website has been covered and we are now able to go ahead with the purchase of the all mobile recording equipment which will be needed for the village recording sessions. Our resident technical expert and sound engineer, Andy Patter…
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…
SWP Launch Day News
…in earnest from here. It’s particularly appropriate that we should launch today, as this week Kenya celebrates the 47th anniversary of independence, which was granted on 12th December 1963. And yesterday, I was very honoured to be a guest at a reception for Kenya National Day hosted by the High Commissioner in London, Mr Ephraim Ngare. It was a wonderful occasion, with a motivating speech from Mr Ngare about Kenya’s progress and the special relat…