MuzikoMonda was awarded a  Peace  Project  Grant  by the
Davis  United  World  Scholars  Program  to play a tour for Greater Boston audiences during the Summer of 2007.

This honor has given MuMa the opportunity to develop and offer the following:
• an hour long concert program of music from Africa, Asia, Western and
               Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin and North America.
• a 45 minute concert for music schools that ends with 15 more minutes in
               which the students play along with MuMa.
• an hour long workshop for middle school students called “Hearing and
               Making Music” that focuses on developing listening skills and hands-on exploration of the sounds of various musical instruments - - all sprinkled with group rhythm games that develop team skills as students take turns leading, following, soloing, and improvising.

Intended Goals:

A.  to expose Boston area youth to a large variety of musics from the Americas, Europe, the Midel East, Asia and Africa, in contrast to the globalized commercial music they hear every day.  MuMa hoped that this exposure would result in healthy pride for those whose ancestral countries were represented, and in healthy curiosity about the other countries and peoples of the world.

B.  To create a world music ensemble that could continue spreading that exposure and exploration of world musics beyond this summer.

Project Results:

MuMa's performances have proven effective, and MuMa has a future beyond the summer of 2007.  The Davis Project for Peace Grant enabled MuzikoMonda to grow from an independent study student group to a professional caliber ensemble with world map banners as a background; with the new and necessary equipment of an electric piano and amplifier; with arrangements of a variety of authentic world musics by four Boston Conservatory composers/arrangers; with tee shirts as our performance uniforms, and with a website designed by a MuMa member.  In addition, the musicians in MuMa were paid for their performances, allowing them to spend less time working in non-musical/minimum wage jobs in order to make ends meet.

Since beginning the summer tour, MuMa has been invited to be a featured act at Uplifted: Art Perpetuating Hope (www.uplifted-aph.org) on September 15, and have also performed at the AFS World Peace Forum (www.afs.org) at Columbia University in New York on October 27. 

 

For more information, please visit www.kwd100projectsforpeace.org