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Martin Neil

Street musician

By Music that inspiresNo Comments

BUSKERSGreat day hanging out with Jonathan Walker – his first time busking in Chichester. He heads up an online community to encourage street musicians.  He writes “ASAP exists to celebrate public spaces as places of community, interaction and enjoyment. Whether you are a street artist and performer yourself, or you share our vision of public spaces being places of animation and community, we welcome your involvement. You can join here.”

Czech Republic architecture

By EuropeNo Comments

Found this quote in one of my old National Geographic’s  –  “Look, I was born in Austro-Hungary,” said a man in his 80’s. “I grew up in Czechoslovakia, suffered from Germans, spent 40 years in a colony of Russia – without leaving Prague! Now we’re Czechs again, like we’ve been for a thousand years. What’s so bad about that?” (Sept 1993 Nat Geog). Just about sums up their history – this has all added to the most unique architecture and design.

Books for Cambodia

By CambodiaNo Comments

CCAMS students have written eight more books, they are just waiting for illustrations to be completed. A new children’s book entitled Remember, has recently been mass produced and distributed to local stores!  This is a caterpillar-to-butterfly story with a creative twist. Another book is ready for publication called A Hole of His Own.  It is a story for younger children about the love of two big sisters for their little brother. Blackie’s Boy, is almost ready to print.  It is the story of a dog’s sacrificial love for his boy.

They have submitted copies of their first three published books to Room-to-Read to obtain government approval for distribution to libraries all across Cambodia.

Perspective

By My StoriesNo Comments

We often use maps of the world to encourage people to discuss perspective – all maps are saying something but often it is not what we think they are saying.  You have to know what the cartographer is trying to depict to really understand the map. Also as time moves on we learn more and can ask questions behind why we might have done things a certain way in the past eg for political reasons. Here’s a fun clip from a TV episode that looks at this conundrum.

Interestingly whilst on a recent flight I read about “trap streets” – apparently cartographers for centuries have misnamed streets or made up new ones for the sole purpose of catching those who copied or reprinted maps as their own. The London A-Z was reported to have more than 100 trap streets by the mid 2000’s. This you will be pleased to know is now a dying art!

God sent his Singers upon earth With songs of sadness and of mirth, That they might touch the hearts of men, And bring them back to heaven again.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

New CCAMS dance

By CambodiaNo Comments

“My Body Broken for You,” was performed at Logos International School in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on June 8, 2013, is an original dance in Khmer creative style, lyrics by Sarin Sam to a traditional Khmer melody, with choreography by CCAMS graduate staff Reaksmey Long Ty.

My whole life, my whole soul, and my whole spirit is to blow that horn

Louis Armstrong

Honour your treaties

By AmericasNo Comments

Thanks Bonnie Low for passing on this video which tells the story of a photographers journey amongst the Oglala Lakota Nation. It changed his life. What encouraged us is that through the building of relationships and hearing their stories, his reason for taking pictures suddenly takes a back step as he starts to look at the deeper issues of life on Native American Indian reservations. Well worth a watch.

New Zealand – Songs from the inside

By OceaniaNo Comments

SONGS_FTI-web_HEADER

Thanks to Bonnie for introducing us to this wonderful TV documentary from New Zealand about 4 musicians, Ruia Aperahama, Maisey Rika, Anika Moa and Warren Maxwell who take the art of songwriting into prisons. With the incredible technology we have at our finger tips today you can watch the whole series on the web – Maori TV – Songs from the inside.

In February 2014, a second series of programs started, this time Auckland prisons Paremoremo and the Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility were the recipients of the musical program. Joining Anika Moa this time is; Don McGlashan, Laugton Kora and Annie Crummer. Video from this series will also be available globally online.

Incredible throat singing from Mongolia

By VoiceNo Comments

Tuvan singerThis incredible overtone singing started in the small republic of Tuva, a Siberian republic on the border of Mongolia and is known as throat singing (xöömei in Tuvan). Tuvan throat singers can produce two, three and sometimes even four pitches simultaneously. This ancient style of singing is accompanied by horse hooves, bull testicles (yes, you heard me correctly – a percussion instrument!) and horse hair fiddle. Read More

He who would travel happily must travel light.

Antoine de Saint Exupéry