INTERCULTURAL CHILDREN'S CHOIR - SING FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

BBC Young Jazz Musician semi-finalist, jazz saxophonist Asha (age 16) has less than 24 hours to go on her Voices Beyond Divisions appeal to create an intercultural children's choir to encourage mutual tolerance and counter extreme radicalism of young people.  As with the East-West Divan Orchestra and other well-known projects, it's trying to use music as a unifying force for social and political change.The idea is to counter extremist radicalisation of young people. There'll be fun games and workshops, input from charities like Syria Relief and a performance of a work specially written for the choir (by Asha) at St. James Piccadilly on November 12th 2016

The good news is that she's now raised enough to go ahead - a bit more than shows on the Crowdfunder site in fact as some were baffled by the online faff and just sent cheques instead.

We're still looking for some more to fund all of the planned activities, so if you're able to pledge (even £2 will help more children to take part), the Crowdfunder.co.uk route is open until 20th April at 10.10 pm and all contributions will be gratefully received!  

LINK TO CROWDFUNDER SITE https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/voices-beyond-divisions-1

Asha and students from the Purcell School of Music have launched an extraordinary project, bringing children together from different cultural backgrounds across the UK to sing for peace in the Middle East. The idea is to counter extremist radicalisation of young people. There'll be fun games and workshops, input from charities like Syria Relief and a performance of a work specially written for the choir (by Asha) at St. James Piccadilly. The work mixes Western orchestral and Middle Eastern instruments and will feature top musicians from the School of Oriental and African Studies plus renowned nasheed artist Abdullah Rolle. Children, musicians, teachers, specific schools and organisations are all lined up ready to go. This is a really idealistic and ambitious CrowdFunder appeal, but it's organised, thought out and can work. Plus, it's great to see a teenager not raising money for themselves for a change ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39-IUPSYkDc