Cultures in Harmony

On March 10, 2021, the Ministry of Education of Afghanistan announced a ban on girls 12 years and older from singing in public arenas — this would include being able to participate in singing their National Anthem. To call attention to this shameful action, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, Founder and Director of Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), started the […]

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Cultures in Harmony launched “Connecting Cultures through Counterpoint,” a platform that offers musicians, students, and audience members around the world the opportunity to forge virtual musical connections across borders and cultures. “Connect 4” videos bring together four musicians from far-flung countries to collaborate on a piece of music.  In […]

Cultures in Harmony is very proud of Souhayl Guesmi, also known as Ratchopper, for his mention in the New York Times’ article about how to imagine that you’re taking a vacation to Tunisia. Souhayl has been a frequent student at our annual workshop in Beni M’tir. Here is the track recommended by the New York […]

Please check out the new video on C3 (Connecting Cultures through Counterpoint), our platform launched during the COVID-19 pandemic. We profile Mexico’s only trumpet school and the challenges it has faced to remain open:

One of the best friends that Cultures in Harmony projects has given me, Ebere Valentine, passed away of kidney failure in Nigeria on November 5, 2020. Ebere, trained as a minister in his native Nigeria, was living in Cameroon when he contacted me in 2008 after hearing a podcast about Cultures in Harmony. At the […]

We are deeply saddened to learn of the death from coronavirus of Sr. Ruth Lewis, a Pakistani nun who truly lived out her faith. Since 1969, she ran Dar ul Sukun, a home for the disabled in Karachi, Pakistan. Cultures in Harmony and FEW the band presented concerts there in February and August 2012. These pictures show us with Sr. […]

The first video of our new platform, Connecting Cultures through Counterpoint, is now on YouTube. It’s called Congo: Music Surviving and shows musician and activist Bernard Kalume Buleri reflecting on the role music plays in Congolese society and his experience having survived two pandemics, Ebola and coronavirus.

We at Cultures in Harmony hope that all our friends, supporters, musicians, and partners around the world are staying at home, safe from the spread of COVID-19. At this time, we are evaluating how best to provide musical enrichment to young Tunisian musicians, given that our main project planned for 2020 is our annual music […]

This #Giving Tuesday, Cultures in Harmony would like to offer you a unique opportunity: to give the gift of connections. Connections between you, the young musicians we will teach in Tunisia in 2020, and the musicians we will send to teach them. There’s no telling where these connections will lead: former students at our workshops […]

When I thanked Abigail P. for becoming our first ever monthly donor, here’s what she wrote about her decision to donate to Cultures in Harmony: “I participated in one of your projects about ten years ago now. As for why Cultures in Harmony, well, I really wanted to contribute to music/arts/culture. So I foresee myself […]