what i've been doing since I've been home, and crowdfunder for 'Musical Journeys '25, the Fiona's Travels edition'
A personal update and a request for some help...!?
I thought I’d write to update this blog with a bit of info about all
the things I’ve been doing since I got back from my 14 months away, because I’m
really quite elated about how they all seem to link together in very beautiful
and sometimes uncanny ways.
Since I got back in January I’ve spent time organising my
videos, photos and notes and done some themed talks about my trip... But it hasn’t stopped there. I've been doing a crowdfunder for ‘Musical Journeys ’25, the Fiona’s Travels’
edition’ and there’s more about that at the end
of this update. (If you don’t
have time to read all this, here’s the link, you know what to do- I need your
help NOW – i’ve only got 2 and a bit more weeks)... www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/musicaljourneys25
Other bits of my life....
HANNAH FRANK ART
I’ve been up to Scotland a couple of times and now have Hannah
Frank art on sale at Mark’s Deli in Giffnock Glasgow as well as hosted a very
nice launch for a new permanent Hannah Frank gallery at the care home where my
late aunt spent her last days. We featured the new gallery in a Zoom event I did in May for the Edinburgh
Jewish Cultural Centre. It was a really
ambitious production in two languages (with the help of my two wonderful
TRI-lingual interpreters Mel (a French woman who speaks Brazilian Portuguese,
Parisian French, and English English) and Judith (a Canadian, who speaks the
same three languages as Mel, but completely differently - Portuguese from Portugal, Quebecois French,
and Canadian English!).
My aunt’s art had toured in Brazil last year, along with the art
of Artur Soar, a Brazilian artist who was inspired by all the Hannah Frank art in
my home when he spent a couple of weeks there doing an art residency in the
area in December 2023. I’d had the
idea for months of getting input from the FIVE different galleries in Brazil where the ‘Hannah
Frank and Artur Soar, an artistic dialogue between Scotland and Bahia’ exhibition
had taken place - two galleries in Lencois, two in Cachoeira, a restaurant in
Salvador, plus a forthcoming exhibition in Paraty near Rio.
Artur and his mum Maiza (who had also helped me to organise the
interpreting for the conference about the Amazon I’d put on in 2022) did all the liaising and I think the resulting zoom show was well
worth watching! It’s now on the
Edinburgh Jewish Cultural Centre’s youtube account here https://youtu.be/uAKTmOKALB8 . Artur
is coming back to the UK in the autumn after doing an art, music, and capoeira performance
at the Vortex dance camp in Rennes, Brittany which is run by a
Brazilian/English couple. We’re hosting
a ‘Hannah Frank and Artur Soar’ exhibition at Halton Mill opening on 4
September and running till early October – it will be up during the ‘Musical
Travels ‘25’ event on 4 October, if we achieve our target and get that to
happen.....
GLOBAL GROOVES – AFROBRAZILIAN DRUMMING AND DANCE
A couple of weeks ago I
went with my friend Janet Ross-Mills (who’s coming to Brazil with me in
November!) to a Brazilian drum and dance day with Ruth Asidi and Guga
Santos, at a fabulous centre called
Global Grooves, situated in a very unlikely out-of the way place - Mossley near
Oldham. I’d met the dance teacher, Ruth,
through my lovely Lancaster friend Elham.
She had already invited me to go and visit her in the atlantic forest
she and Guga are working on in
Pernambuco, Brazil, near Recife... so I thought I should go and check
out the drum and dance work they are doing.
NOT ONLY was it amazing and wonderful and inspiring, and Janet and I
have signed up to spend a week with them in their music/art/permaculture centre
in November when we arrive in Brazil, but ALSO it turns out that Guga performed
last year at the very same dance production centre in Rennes where Artur will
be going in September!
Here's a reel of what we did on the day .... https://www.facebook.com/reel/1125887656242943
EXHIBITION: FOR DOM, BRUNO
and the AMAZON
I spent a couple of months
doing a LOT of work with my neighbour and colleague Alison Cahn, updating the
exhibition ‘For Dom, Bruno and the Amazon’ – honouring the lives of my friend
Sian’s brother, environmental journalist Dom Phillips, and Indigenous expert Bruno
Pereira. It’s going on show at Halton
Mill near where I live, from 23 July. At the launch we’ll have not only a talk
by a Brazil based anthropologist who’s working on human rights and land
struggles, but also a class in Afro-Brazilian dance moves by a Lancaster dance teacher who’s spent a lot
of time in Brazil. She told me a very useful thing about Brazilian ‘flow’ before I went there: you don’t hear about things in advance like
you do here, people will let you know ON THE DAY that something really big is
happening THAT EVENING!
You can see a low res version of the exhibition here : tinyurl.com/dombruno25 - and it's available free of charge (just pay the postage/courier costs) for community and educational venues and festivals etc around the UK
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HOW TO SAVE THE AMAZON; A
JOURNALIST’S DEADLY QUEST FOR ANSWERS
On 3 June we had the book
launch in Lancaster of ‘How to Save the Amazon: a journalist’s deadly quest for
answers’, Dom’s posthumously published book.
Indigenous leader Beto Marubo, from the region where Dom and
Bruno were killed, Alessandra Sampaio Dom’s widow, Sian Phillips Dom’s sister,
and Jonathan Watts, Guardian journalist, did a fantastic job at the packed main
hall at the Gregson (together with singing
from the Dot Crotchet choir and local musician Pete Moser). Beto – who was the cousin of Nelly Marubo who
spoke at our Amazon conference in 2022!), Ale, Sian and Paul came for a picnic
on the river near my house the day before the booklaunch. It was really
wonderful – and it turns out my Portuguese is totally fit for purpose after 2 years
of study. (my Portuguese teacher has let
me off coming to classes for a couple of months after working so hard
recently!)
MORE STUDIES??!!!
I might have told you that in 2023 I did a short Kings College
London masters module about language and culture, and got an essay published in
the Ecolinguistics Society journal about the importance of minority languages
in the climate crisis (and there was also a poem...) Anyway, after a lot of vacillating,
I’ve decided to do another module as part of this masters, which is called ‘connecting
cultures’ and is about the Atlantic slave trade through literature, film,
music... Of course I don’t have to do the essay at the end, but it looks really
inspiring, I’ve just seen it this
evening.... “Migration: Constructing Meaning in the Past and the Present” . and then they say “You may seek to explore the
intersection of material objects and language, citizenship and diaspora, or the
interrelationship of migration in the past and present as expressed in music
and song” and I’m going to use Brazil
for all the context – there’s so much to say! And the reading list is
fascinating. Ask me if you want to know more….
MUSICAL JOURNEYS ’25.
And
now back to Musical Journeys ’25. I’m
so proud of this project, it brings together everything I love – fabulous
musicians and dancers who I played and danced with while I was travelling,
raising money for Amazonian causes, doing advanced Zoom tech, AND programming a
really interesting and ambitious global cabaret.... Thanks so much if you’ve already bought your
advance ticket or supported this project; (please could you tell your friends
about it?) and IF you haven’t , PLEASE
PLEASE could you go to the crowdfunder
TODAY (link at the bottom) and add your
support to it? I have a meeting with my lovely folky Crowdfunder consultant Jo
tomorrow, she told me that nothing much happens between the 2nd and
3rd week of the crowdfunder, but I want to prove her wrong!) Although the event isn’t till October, the
Crowdfunder finishes on 24 July, in just over 2 weeks, and I need to get the
whole thing funded by then – otherwise we lose all the pledges we already have,
which would be a disaster for the Amazon causes who are hoping for the funds,
plus the musicians and dancers, plus the event!
Pledges start at £5 for low waged or student
online tickets, and there’s no need to
tip Crowdfunder, just change the ‘custom amount’ under the total to zero. There’s a video at the top of the crowdfunder
page with some of the artists on it, and a bit more info. I’d be happy to tell
you more about this event if you ring me 07778 737681. Oh and also , if
you’re going to be around on 4th October, would you like to be one
of my event helpers? Either online or in person? That would be amazing (but it
doesn’t stop you pledging, I need your support now too!)
Here’s the link
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/musicaljourneys25
Here’s some text to send on to your friends and family
What’s Musical Journeys ‘25?
An international online and hybrid cabaret featuring musicians my friend Fiona
Frank met while travelling across Brazil and Canada:
Cacuriá Rosa de Balaio dancers from
São Luís, Brazil
Mary Beth Carty (Nova Scotia) –
Canadian Folk Singer of the Year 2024
Carmen Guérard (Quebec) – virtuoso
Québécois melodeon
And possibly MORE performers.
You can join on Zoom, or attend in
person at Halton
Mill near Lancaster, where there’ll also be:
Capoeira Angola Ogum performing
live
Batala Lancaster bringing
Brazilian vibes to Halton
And Brazilian food and artwork to
bring the space to life
And don’t forget – this is more than a concert.
At least a quarter of
all funds raised will support three projects connected to
the Amazon:
The Dom Phillips Institute, founded by Dom’s
widow to take forward his legacy of providing a voice for Indigenous defenders
in the Amazon
A rap project for young artists in
Altamira, in the heart of the Amazon
A musical instrument distribution
initiative for remote Indigenous villages near Tefé,
Amazonas state
The
event won’t happen unless we raise at least £3,500 by the deadline, 24th July. (And if we exceed
our targets, this musical celebration will get even bigger
and more diverse.
Fiona is already in talks with:
Gilles Losier, the
89-year-old blind fiddler and pianist, in a never before seen collaboration
with La Famille
Leblanc, a sensational father-and-daughters family band from
New Brunswick in Eastern Canada
A Klezmer band from Montreal
And more...
Grab your ticket today and help us get over the
line and have a great event in October.
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