Saturday 30 July 2011

World Music Festival: WOMAD 2011





“Protect your vuvuzela before you waka-waka, don’t let HIV take your life” – so goes the beat line of a song by Alpha Blondy, a.k.a. “the wise elder of African reggae”, with which he engaged the audience at one of the opening shows of this festival yesterday …



Diarabi – One of the best renditions of this celebrated traditional African song (originally from Mali) - which has also been interpreted by our own Bonga in that pioneering Anthology of World Music of African origin, Manu Dibango’s ‘Wakafrika’ -, could also be heard at one of yesterday's shows by ensemble Afrocubism with Eliades Ochoa, Toumani Diabaté, Bassekou Kouyaté, Djelimady Tounkora, Kasse Mady Diabaté...



These were just a couple of highlights from this year's WOMAD in the UK.


[More details here]





“Protect your vuvuzela before you waka-waka, don’t let HIV take your life” – so goes the beat line of a song by Alpha Blondy, a.k.a. “the wise elder of African reggae”, with which he engaged the audience at one of the opening shows of this festival yesterday …



Diarabi – One of the best renditions of this celebrated traditional African song (originally from Mali) - which has also been interpreted by our own Bonga in that pioneering Anthology of World Music of African origin, Manu Dibango’s ‘Wakafrika’ -, could also be heard at one of yesterday's shows by ensemble Afrocubism with Eliades Ochoa, Toumani Diabaté, Bassekou Kouyaté, Djelimady Tounkora, Kasse Mady Diabaté...



These were just a couple of highlights from this year's WOMAD in the UK.


[More details here]

Friday 29 July 2011

3rd Luanda International Jazz Festival

Listening to Classical Acoustic Guitar



That’s what I did today in an intimate recital by Tony Rowden at which he played a few classical and contemporary pieces. It reminded me that I am ‘actually’ a ‘classical guitarist’ – or at least attended a formal course and have a Diploma to that effect – but never became a performer. My son is also a guitarist, but much more committed and accomplished than I am despite being mostly self-taught…



So, it all sounded and felt a bit ‘ancient’ going back to listening to a man and his instrument in front of sheets of written music which he at the end of each piece threw to the floor. It was good.



Here’s a bit about him:

Tony premiered Memórias, the published works of Silvestre Fonseca's Fado arrangements, and had a piece, Serenata, written for him by Silvestre Fonseca.

He has several arrangements published: Ennio Morricone's Once Upon A Time In The West and The Master and Margerita and the book Easy Ensembles. His playing is featured in the films Silent Shakespeare, with pieces composed by Laura Rossi, and an animated film with music composed by Miguel Mera.

Tony has been teaching at the City Literary Institute in Holborn, London for the past twelve years and runs a class at Bedford House Community Centre. He has performed with Carlos Bonell as well as flautists, recorder players, Renaissance singers and a guitar trio. He has recently played in Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding, Lope de Vega's Peribanez and a musical version of George Orwell's Animal Farm.


[More here]



That’s what I did today in an intimate recital by Tony Rowden at which he played a few classical and contemporary pieces. It reminded me that I am ‘actually’ a ‘classical guitarist’ – or at least attended a formal course and have a Diploma to that effect – but never became a performer. My son is also a guitarist, but much more committed and accomplished than I am despite being mostly self-taught…



So, it all sounded and felt a bit ‘ancient’ going back to listening to a man and his instrument in front of sheets of written music which he at the end of each piece threw to the floor. It was good.



Here’s a bit about him:

Tony premiered Memórias, the published works of Silvestre Fonseca's Fado arrangements, and had a piece, Serenata, written for him by Silvestre Fonseca.

He has several arrangements published: Ennio Morricone's Once Upon A Time In The West and The Master and Margerita and the book Easy Ensembles. His playing is featured in the films Silent Shakespeare, with pieces composed by Laura Rossi, and an animated film with music composed by Miguel Mera.

Tony has been teaching at the City Literary Institute in Holborn, London for the past twelve years and runs a class at Bedford House Community Centre. He has performed with Carlos Bonell as well as flautists, recorder players, Renaissance singers and a guitar trio. He has recently played in Garcia Lorca's Blood Wedding, Lope de Vega's Peribanez and a musical version of George Orwell's Animal Farm.


[More here]

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Opera: 'Most Frequent Questions'





Q.: What is it?
A.: Just Like Classical Ballett, A European Art Form


"Opera is the European art form par excellence, because it overcomes national and linguistic barriers through the universal language of music. Its core values and themes are central to European culture, which is part of our common identity. For this reason, the European Opera Days are celebrated on the weekend closest to 9 May, Europe Day.



Over time Opera has become an emblem of European culture. Its creation and performance are a prime focus of a nation’s cultural identity, but one which communicates internationally. An opera house belongs to its own town and region, but it is visible to the world."

here



Q.: What's at it's core?
A.: The Aria


"Tom Sutcliffe has a long pedigree when it comes to opera. He was hooked at the age of four. It's given him plenty of time to fathom what it is that makes this theatrical form impinge so powerfully. He argues that while it might seem grand, flamboyant, passionate and overtly emotional, when you look more closely it's the intimacy of it that counts.



The aria, and Tom believes these are at its core, is a confessional form. It might be launched into a huge auditorium with gut-busting zeal and massive vocal projection, but what it does is to open the character's emotions up to the audience by way of the music. The music, the singing, is everything, and it's why the aria, which Tom believes is opera's version of the cinematic close-up, is so important.
There are plenty of other elements that contribute. Relevance in setting and substance can be too slavishly observed but they matter as well. Laced with his recollections of the good and the bad in his many years as a critic, Tom makes the case for opera by going beyond the usual cliche's and enthusiasms for grandeur and beauty."

here



Q.: Is it "for the masses" and 'all that important'?
A.: Well... Just read this:


How I fell out of love with opera

"I've been writing about opera for about a decade now, and over the years, as I've watched one companion after another's eyes glaze over, or close gently, during a show, I have begun to wonder: what if I'm wrong about this? What if it actually is all rubbish, self-indulgent, glittery, adolescent, incontinent, with a vastly inflated view of its own importance? Can opera ever be more than a diversion for people with too much money and too little taste? And was it ever intended to be, anyway?
You hardly need me to tell you that opera is pretty stupid. Ask the audience: plenty of them will tell you the same – if you can get them to wake up. Is there any other form of entertainment so frequented by people who do not like it? This notion – that opera is not actually all that much fun – is hardly new; that's why it comes all dollied up in red velvet, snobbery, fancy dress and vats of alcohol – sops to the considerable sections of the audience who are there for reasons not associated with aesthetic pleasure: the socially ambitious, the conspicuous spenders, those trying to beguile clients or spouses or potential mistresses.



The opera festival is the ne plus ultra of this: an affair where the supposed main event is actually a sideshow to a rigmarole of Issey Miyake shawls, mud-caked mules, champagne and salmon on the lawn. Opera's apologists and the publicity departments of state-funded houses will tell you that it isn't really like that at all, that opera is an art form for the people, that there is no class or age barrier, that indeed the audience are almost entirely first-timers, all under 30, as diverse as the day is long. Five minutes' research will tell you the facts: 6% of the adult population has been to an operatic event of some sort. As a reward for this, 11% of the arts council's entire funding is awarded to opera – and more than 90% of that goes to the national companies, who between them put on fewer than half of the opera performances in the country.
[…]
You will sometimes hear people say opera was intended as an entertainment for the masses, and it is true that at certain periods in 19th-century Italy it seems to have been immensely popular with all classes (or at least all classes that were worth mentioning, which may not be exactly the same thing). Your Italian bourgeois was presumably no more keen than any other nation's on hanging out with the unwashed. In any event, opera was about the closest thing the country had then to a mass media, a phenomenon put to good use by Giuseppe Verdi, who used his operas as a means of promoting the cause of Italian unity.
Nonetheless, this was an aberration. Opera was created in the late 16th century as entertainment for the rich, and for most of its history has remained just that. Whenever it has threatened to become too popular, its plutocratic patrons have done everything in their power to stop it: in 1733, the Prince of Wales set up his own company, tellingly named Opera of the Nobility, to rival Handel's company when that was thought to be getting a bit common; and you don't have to think nearly that far back to remember outbreaks of horror at Covent Garden over relaxations in codes of dress and deportment, and regular contumely is still thrown at directors who threaten to do anything interesting with their shows, or open them up in any way to people not already profoundly versed in the arcana of opera.
[…]
Operatic beginnings owed everything to ancient Greece and young men prancing about with enormous flapping leather phalluses. These Dionysiac roots soon gave way to something altogether more puritanical, so that by the 19th century, far from being a celebration of the anarchic power of sex, opera was mostly concerned with killing off women in big dresses who transgressed against the terrifically hypocritical, misogynistic mores of the time."




Related Posts:

Aria by Grover Washington Jr.

Burrice e/ou Ignorancia, Ou Seria o Contrario?





Q.: What is it?
A.: Just Like Classical Ballett, A European Art Form


"Opera is the European art form par excellence, because it overcomes national and linguistic barriers through the universal language of music. Its core values and themes are central to European culture, which is part of our common identity. For this reason, the European Opera Days are celebrated on the weekend closest to 9 May, Europe Day.



Over time Opera has become an emblem of European culture. Its creation and performance are a prime focus of a nation’s cultural identity, but one which communicates internationally. An opera house belongs to its own town and region, but it is visible to the world."

here



Q.: What's at it's core?
A.: The Aria


"Tom Sutcliffe has a long pedigree when it comes to opera. He was hooked at the age of four. It's given him plenty of time to fathom what it is that makes this theatrical form impinge so powerfully. He argues that while it might seem grand, flamboyant, passionate and overtly emotional, when you look more closely it's the intimacy of it that counts.



The aria, and Tom believes these are at its core, is a confessional form. It might be launched into a huge auditorium with gut-busting zeal and massive vocal projection, but what it does is to open the character's emotions up to the audience by way of the music. The music, the singing, is everything, and it's why the aria, which Tom believes is opera's version of the cinematic close-up, is so important.
There are plenty of other elements that contribute. Relevance in setting and substance can be too slavishly observed but they matter as well. Laced with his recollections of the good and the bad in his many years as a critic, Tom makes the case for opera by going beyond the usual cliche's and enthusiasms for grandeur and beauty."

here



Q.: Is it "for the masses" and 'all that important'?
A.: Well... Just read this:


How I fell out of love with opera

"I've been writing about opera for about a decade now, and over the years, as I've watched one companion after another's eyes glaze over, or close gently, during a show, I have begun to wonder: what if I'm wrong about this? What if it actually is all rubbish, self-indulgent, glittery, adolescent, incontinent, with a vastly inflated view of its own importance? Can opera ever be more than a diversion for people with too much money and too little taste? And was it ever intended to be, anyway?
You hardly need me to tell you that opera is pretty stupid. Ask the audience: plenty of them will tell you the same – if you can get them to wake up. Is there any other form of entertainment so frequented by people who do not like it? This notion – that opera is not actually all that much fun – is hardly new; that's why it comes all dollied up in red velvet, snobbery, fancy dress and vats of alcohol – sops to the considerable sections of the audience who are there for reasons not associated with aesthetic pleasure: the socially ambitious, the conspicuous spenders, those trying to beguile clients or spouses or potential mistresses.



The opera festival is the ne plus ultra of this: an affair where the supposed main event is actually a sideshow to a rigmarole of Issey Miyake shawls, mud-caked mules, champagne and salmon on the lawn. Opera's apologists and the publicity departments of state-funded houses will tell you that it isn't really like that at all, that opera is an art form for the people, that there is no class or age barrier, that indeed the audience are almost entirely first-timers, all under 30, as diverse as the day is long. Five minutes' research will tell you the facts: 6% of the adult population has been to an operatic event of some sort. As a reward for this, 11% of the arts council's entire funding is awarded to opera – and more than 90% of that goes to the national companies, who between them put on fewer than half of the opera performances in the country.
[…]
You will sometimes hear people say opera was intended as an entertainment for the masses, and it is true that at certain periods in 19th-century Italy it seems to have been immensely popular with all classes (or at least all classes that were worth mentioning, which may not be exactly the same thing). Your Italian bourgeois was presumably no more keen than any other nation's on hanging out with the unwashed. In any event, opera was about the closest thing the country had then to a mass media, a phenomenon put to good use by Giuseppe Verdi, who used his operas as a means of promoting the cause of Italian unity.
Nonetheless, this was an aberration. Opera was created in the late 16th century as entertainment for the rich, and for most of its history has remained just that. Whenever it has threatened to become too popular, its plutocratic patrons have done everything in their power to stop it: in 1733, the Prince of Wales set up his own company, tellingly named Opera of the Nobility, to rival Handel's company when that was thought to be getting a bit common; and you don't have to think nearly that far back to remember outbreaks of horror at Covent Garden over relaxations in codes of dress and deportment, and regular contumely is still thrown at directors who threaten to do anything interesting with their shows, or open them up in any way to people not already profoundly versed in the arcana of opera.
[…]
Operatic beginnings owed everything to ancient Greece and young men prancing about with enormous flapping leather phalluses. These Dionysiac roots soon gave way to something altogether more puritanical, so that by the 19th century, far from being a celebration of the anarchic power of sex, opera was mostly concerned with killing off women in big dresses who transgressed against the terrifically hypocritical, misogynistic mores of the time."




Related Posts:

Aria by Grover Washington Jr.

Burrice e/ou Ignorancia, Ou Seria o Contrario?

Tuesday 26 July 2011

JUST POETRY (XLIII)




THE CALL OF THE WILD



Poetry is not an answer

Poetry is a calling

a vision that does not vanish

just because nothing

concrete comes along, or

because the kingdom of heaven

is under some tyrant's foot



Poetry is not a right

Poetry is a demand

to be left alone

or joined together or whatever

we need to live



Poetry is not an ideology

poets choose life

over ideas, love people

more than theories, and really would

prefer a kiss to a lecture



Poetry



Poetry is not a government

Poetry is a revolution

guerrillas -- si!

politicians -- no!



Poetry is always hungry

for all that is

forbidden

poetry never stops drinking

not even after the last drop, if we

run out of wine poets will

figure a way to ferment rain



Poetry wears taboos

like perfume with a red shirt

and a feather in the cap,

sandals or bare feet, and

sleeps nude with the door unlocked



Poetry cuts up propriety into campfire logs and sits

around proclaiming life's glories far into

each starry night, poetry burns prudence

like it was a stick of aromatic incense or

the even more fragrant odor of the heretic

aflame at the stake, eternally unwilling

to swear allegiance

to foul breathed censors

with torches in their hands



Poetry smells like a fart

in every single court of law and smells

like fresh mountain air

in every dank jail cell



Poetry is unreliable

Poetry will always jump the fence

just when you think poets are behind you

they show up somewhere off the beaten path

absent without leave, beckoning for you

to take your boots off and listen to the birds



Poetry is myopic and refuses to wear glasses

never sees no trespassing signs and always

prefers to be up touching close to everything

skin to skin, skin to sky, skin to light

poetry loves skin, loathes coverings



Poetry is not mature

it will act like a child

to the point of social embarrassment

if you try to pin poetry down

it will throw a fit

yet it can sit quietly for hours

playing with a flower



Poetry has no manners

it will undress in public everyday of the week

go shamelessly naked at high noon on holidays

and play with itself, smiling



Poetry is not just sexual

not just monosexual

nor just homosexual

nor just heterosexual

nor bisexual

or asexual

poetry is erotic and is willing

any way you want to try it



Poetry



Poetry has no god

there is no church of poetry

no ministers and certainly no priests

no catechisms nor sacred texts

and no devils either

or sin, for that matter, original

synthetic, cloned or otherwise, no sin



Poetry



In the beginning was the word

and from then until the end

let there always be



Poetry!









Kalamu ya Salaam




THE CALL OF THE WILD



Poetry is not an answer

Poetry is a calling

a vision that does not vanish

just because nothing

concrete comes along, or

because the kingdom of heaven

is under some tyrant's foot



Poetry is not a right

Poetry is a demand

to be left alone

or joined together or whatever

we need to live



Poetry is not an ideology

poets choose life

over ideas, love people

more than theories, and really would

prefer a kiss to a lecture



Poetry



Poetry is not a government

Poetry is a revolution

guerrillas -- si!

politicians -- no!



Poetry is always hungry

for all that is

forbidden

poetry never stops drinking

not even after the last drop, if we

run out of wine poets will

figure a way to ferment rain



Poetry wears taboos

like perfume with a red shirt

and a feather in the cap,

sandals or bare feet, and

sleeps nude with the door unlocked



Poetry cuts up propriety into campfire logs and sits

around proclaiming life's glories far into

each starry night, poetry burns prudence

like it was a stick of aromatic incense or

the even more fragrant odor of the heretic

aflame at the stake, eternally unwilling

to swear allegiance

to foul breathed censors

with torches in their hands



Poetry smells like a fart

in every single court of law and smells

like fresh mountain air

in every dank jail cell



Poetry is unreliable

Poetry will always jump the fence

just when you think poets are behind you

they show up somewhere off the beaten path

absent without leave, beckoning for you

to take your boots off and listen to the birds



Poetry is myopic and refuses to wear glasses

never sees no trespassing signs and always

prefers to be up touching close to everything

skin to skin, skin to sky, skin to light

poetry loves skin, loathes coverings



Poetry is not mature

it will act like a child

to the point of social embarrassment

if you try to pin poetry down

it will throw a fit

yet it can sit quietly for hours

playing with a flower



Poetry has no manners

it will undress in public everyday of the week

go shamelessly naked at high noon on holidays

and play with itself, smiling



Poetry is not just sexual

not just monosexual

nor just homosexual

nor just heterosexual

nor bisexual

or asexual

poetry is erotic and is willing

any way you want to try it



Poetry



Poetry has no god

there is no church of poetry

no ministers and certainly no priests

no catechisms nor sacred texts

and no devils either

or sin, for that matter, original

synthetic, cloned or otherwise, no sin



Poetry



In the beginning was the word

and from then until the end

let there always be



Poetry!









Kalamu ya Salaam

Saturday 23 July 2011

Amy Winehouse (R.I.P.)




[Image from here - More details here]


Related Post:








Sunday Cover & Poetry (VIII)




[Image from here - More details here]


Related Post:








Sunday Cover & Poetry (VIII)

Oslo under attack





Sad...



[More details here]





Sad...



[More details here]

Thursday 21 July 2011

(ainda) O 27 de Maio e As feridas (ainda) por sarar...





A cela (8) cadeia de S. Paulo em Luanda


"Era um dos piores lugares, para se meter um ser humano, seja qual fosse o crime que cometesse.

Era uma cela especial pelo horror que nela se vivia, onde os presos tinham que beber da mesma água da pia, onde faziam suas necessidades maiores. Por um pequeno postigo, recebiam seus alimentos cheirosos, muitas vezes embrulhados em restos de jornais ou de trapos, com salpicos de sangue, daqueles presos que eram escorraçados nos intorragatórios e de lá, seguiam para á ambulância da morte.

Numa temperatura tão húmida, enquanto uns dormiam outros ficavam de joelho para se conseguir uma resma de espaço, para cada um.

Aquela cela parecia um autentico museu de horrores, para quem, dia e noite só ouvia gemidos e gritos, de inocentes ou culpados.

Eram mulheres e homens todos no mesmo barco, sacudidos pela mesma intensidade repressiva, mas com destino e sorte diferente para cada um. Entradas e saídas de presos, para locais improvisados de interrogatórios ou de morte, era uma constante .

Apenas a dor, os gemidos e a perda de mais um consofredor, era a única luz, que iluminava aquele local, onde os dias eram igualzinhos ás noites.

Poucos resistiram os horrores, humilhações e aquelas torturas permanentes, que transformavam vidas antes pacatas, em restos humanos."


[...]


Podera' ler esse testemunho na integra aqui, onde podera' tambem encontrar a apresentacao deste video inedito sobre o 27 de Maio:






Post relacionado:

Neste 27 de Maio





A cela (8) cadeia de S. Paulo em Luanda


"Era um dos piores lugares, para se meter um ser humano, seja qual fosse o crime que cometesse.

Era uma cela especial pelo horror que nela se vivia, onde os presos tinham que beber da mesma água da pia, onde faziam suas necessidades maiores. Por um pequeno postigo, recebiam seus alimentos cheirosos, muitas vezes embrulhados em restos de jornais ou de trapos, com salpicos de sangue, daqueles presos que eram escorraçados nos intorragatórios e de lá, seguiam para á ambulância da morte.

Numa temperatura tão húmida, enquanto uns dormiam outros ficavam de joelho para se conseguir uma resma de espaço, para cada um.

Aquela cela parecia um autentico museu de horrores, para quem, dia e noite só ouvia gemidos e gritos, de inocentes ou culpados.

Eram mulheres e homens todos no mesmo barco, sacudidos pela mesma intensidade repressiva, mas com destino e sorte diferente para cada um. Entradas e saídas de presos, para locais improvisados de interrogatórios ou de morte, era uma constante .

Apenas a dor, os gemidos e a perda de mais um consofredor, era a única luz, que iluminava aquele local, onde os dias eram igualzinhos ás noites.

Poucos resistiram os horrores, humilhações e aquelas torturas permanentes, que transformavam vidas antes pacatas, em restos humanos."


[...]


Podera' ler esse testemunho na integra aqui, onde podera' tambem encontrar a apresentacao deste video inedito sobre o 27 de Maio:






Post relacionado:

Neste 27 de Maio

Wednesday 20 July 2011

News of The (end of the) World [Updated]**



UPDATE**

Latest Developments


































[More details here]





*UPDATE

The Last Edition



First (Sunday, October 01, 1843) and last (Sunday, July 10, 2011) covers of the News of The World spanning a 168-year history.





This is the story of the downfall of a newspaper almost two centuries old


This is the story of journalism at its worst


This is the story of the pornographic demise of ethical principles, moral values, codes of conduct and professional deontology under the pressure of sensationalism and other egocentric 'easy rewards' and 'instant gratification'...


This is the story that clearly signals the end of an era in mainstream media as we knew it and the rise of citizen journalism (...though not necessarily all kinds of "social media" or "social networks"...) with the new standards of transparency and accountability they tend to bring about…


This is the story of 'all powers and institutions' gone mad!...

This is the story that totally vindicates the concerns raised in here
e aqui!


[First posted 08/07/11]






















[More details here]





*UPDATE

The Last Edition



First (Sunday, October 01, 1843) and last (Sunday, July 10, 2011) covers of the News of The World spanning a 168-year history.





This is the story of the downfall of a newspaper almost two centuries old


This is the story of journalism at its worst


This is the story of the pornographic demise of ethical principles, moral values, codes of conduct and professional deontology under the pressure of sensationalism and other egocentric 'easy rewards' and 'instant gratification'...


This is the story that clearly signals the end of an era in mainstream media as we knew it and the rise of citizen journalism (...though not necessarily all kinds of "social media" or "social networks"...) with the new standards of transparency and accountability they tend to bring about…


This is the story of 'all powers and institutions' gone mad!...

This is the story that totally vindicates the concerns raised in here
e aqui!


[First posted 08/07/11]

Monday 18 July 2011

Mandela International Day



We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference.
- Nelson Mandela



The overarching objective of Mandela Day is to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better, and in doing so build a global movement for good. Ultimately it seeks to empower communities everywhere. “Take Action; Inspire Change; Make Every Day a Mandela Day.”
Individuals and organisations are free to participate in Mandela Day as they wish. We do however urge everyone to adhere to the ethical framework of “service to one’s fellow human”.


[More details here]






"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela did her field work in Johannesburg’s Alexandra Townships at Entokozweni Family Health and Welfare Centre under the watchful eye of my mother Polina, who was the head Social worker there. This exercise brought Winnie close to my family. In 1984 when she was banished to the remote town of Brandfort, my father Selema Thomas went to visit her against the wishes of the government of Apartheid. He paid for it later with the endless interrogations and raids on his house.

However, when Mrs. Mandela went on her routine visits to her husband who was at the Pollsmoor Prison, she told him about my father’s visits and what he had told her about my sister Barbara and I. On my 46th Birthday April 4th 1985, Nelson Mandela sent me a letter that was smuggled out of prison wishing me good luck with the recording projects and the School of Music we had started in Botswana. He conveyed warm wishes to my family and greetings to the Kalahari Band I was working with, plus many more good tidings.

I was intensely moved by the fact that a man who has been imprisoned for over twenty years could have so much passion and regard for the work that was being done by some musicians in a small town in Botswana. It brought tears to my eyes. His confidence about our imminent liberation was overwhelming. His dedication humbled me and the letter was most flattering.

This song came to me there and then and remains a classic forever, just like the man. We recorded it with Kalahari in 1986 in London as part of the album called “Tomorrow”. When Mandela was released in 1990, the song became a reality and was played as background music on many of his visits to the large cities of America during television broadcasts. It remains a favourite with American and European audiences."


Hugh Masekela



Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)




We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference.
- Nelson Mandela



The overarching objective of Mandela Day is to inspire individuals to take action to help change the world for the better, and in doing so build a global movement for good. Ultimately it seeks to empower communities everywhere. “Take Action; Inspire Change; Make Every Day a Mandela Day.”
Individuals and organisations are free to participate in Mandela Day as they wish. We do however urge everyone to adhere to the ethical framework of “service to one’s fellow human”.


[More details here]






"Winnie Madikizela-Mandela did her field work in Johannesburg’s Alexandra Townships at Entokozweni Family Health and Welfare Centre under the watchful eye of my mother Polina, who was the head Social worker there. This exercise brought Winnie close to my family. In 1984 when she was banished to the remote town of Brandfort, my father Selema Thomas went to visit her against the wishes of the government of Apartheid. He paid for it later with the endless interrogations and raids on his house.

However, when Mrs. Mandela went on her routine visits to her husband who was at the Pollsmoor Prison, she told him about my father’s visits and what he had told her about my sister Barbara and I. On my 46th Birthday April 4th 1985, Nelson Mandela sent me a letter that was smuggled out of prison wishing me good luck with the recording projects and the School of Music we had started in Botswana. He conveyed warm wishes to my family and greetings to the Kalahari Band I was working with, plus many more good tidings.

I was intensely moved by the fact that a man who has been imprisoned for over twenty years could have so much passion and regard for the work that was being done by some musicians in a small town in Botswana. It brought tears to my eyes. His confidence about our imminent liberation was overwhelming. His dedication humbled me and the letter was most flattering.

This song came to me there and then and remains a classic forever, just like the man. We recorded it with Kalahari in 1986 in London as part of the album called “Tomorrow”. When Mandela was released in 1990, the song became a reality and was played as background music on many of his visits to the large cities of America during television broadcasts. It remains a favourite with American and European audiences."


Hugh Masekela



Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela)