Cultures in Harmony is announcing three exciting projects for fall 2023!
In October, we will help the Revival Arts Trust Zimbabwe present another edition of the Pfumvudza Community Arts Festival in Marondera, Zimbabwe. We helped launch this festival in 2015. As part of our participation, the American cellist Amy Macy will perform with Zimbabwean musicians. Additionally, we will create the second video in our #Connect4 series, which brings together musicians from four different countries to perform together. The first video in 2021 brought together musicians from Pakistan, South Africa, Mexico, and the USA; this second video will unite musicians from Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea, Tunisia, and the USA. It will be premiered during the Pfumvudza Festival.
In November, we will bring Barry Moses, an indigenous singer and language activist from the Spokane tribe, from the northwestern USA to southern Mexico, to sing the hymn “Ch’anwi” with the Symphony Orchestra of Oaxaca in the beautiful 1903 Macedonio Alcalá theater on November 10 and 12. CiH Founder and former Spokane Symphony concertmaster William Harvey was commissioned to write a piece based on “Ch’anwi” by the Spokane Symphony in 2017: Barry has performed it with them on several occasions since then. These performances in Oaxaca will forge unique connections between indigenous communities in the USA and Mexico (Spokane and Mixe, the predominant indigenous community in Oaxaca state).
In December, we will return to the Sierra Tarahumara in northern Mexico, where since 2019 we have supported the work of the octogenarian American pianist Romayne Wheeler, who donates all the proceeds from his international piano career to support the health, education, and food security of the indigenous Rarámuri people. Romayne inspires many with his example of a musician whose melodies magically transform into concrete assistance for the Rarámuri.
To support these projects in Mexico and Zimbabwe and the attendant administrative costs, Cultures in Harmony will need to raise a total of $5,000 by November 1. Please make a tax-deductible donation today!
