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After returning from a three week music tour around Australia with South African group Connections Zulu Choir, twenty-two year old Launceston resident, Freya Morgan, is setting her sights on another arts project in Africa. In February 2008, Freya plans to lead a team of ten Australian musicians, dancers and story-tellers to The Gambia in Western Africa, for a three week cultural arts camp organized by Norweigan non-government organisation Education through Culture, Communication and Organisation (ECCO).

“ECCO are a non-profit organisation that seek to create implement and sustain international, educational, artistic and developmental collaborations through cultural exchange and creative meetings. ECCO International is offering a three week module in West African culture and is specifically targeting students of dance, music and theatre”, said Freya.

The visitors staying at these camps become guests of the villages and they are invited into a “real life” experience in the everyday Gambia. The initiative is an alternative to the mass tourism-industry and the visitors are seen as cultural information seekers more than tourists. ECCO also uses and promotes culture as a tool for communication and information to community-groups in the areas of health, drugs and child-abuse issues.

“I believe very passionately in the power of music and the arts to spread awareness and understanding of social issues. Using music we can come together as equals to address these issues and build powerful cross-cultural relationships,” said Freya.

“During the three week music camp the students are introduced to four different cultures and music and dance traditions from the region: Wollof, Fula, Mandika and Susu. The course also has a performance aspect, where the idea is to produce a piece of new music together as artists”, said Freya.

Artistic cultural collaborations are not something new for Freya Morgan. In 2005, she travelled to South Africa with youth-run aid and development organization, The Oaktree Foundation, on a four-week study tour. As a passionate musician, she carried her guitar wherever she went and during the tour she and three other musicians on the trip met with an amazing Zulu choir from the Valley of 1000 Hills region in South Africa. The Australian musicians on the tour and the choir shared their music and collaborated on the creation of a CD with five original tracks inspired by the struggles and triumphs of South Africa.

On returning to Australia, Freya and another musician on the trip, Olivia Brian, decided to work together to organise a second collaboration with the choir. This time, they brought with them a team of seven young Australian musicians for a two-week music tour in October 2006. The aim of this tour was not only to make a collaborative CD, but also to promote cultural unity, build cross-cultural relationships and promote awareness of key issues facing young South Africans, such as crime, HIV/AIDS, poverty, unemployment and poor access to education. During this time the Australian musicians and the choir worked very closely to write and record seven songs. The songs written during the tour reflected these issues, but more importantly, reflected the joy in coming together as one to sing them. Under the name “Simunye Sound”, meaning in Zulu ‘We Are One Sound’, the group performed the songs at local community centres and released the CD with all profits going back to the choir and their community. By the time the Australian musicians went home, the CD could be heard playing in homes and local taverns and taxis in the choir’s community of Kwa Nyuswa.

The journey with the choir had only just begun. In June 2007, the Australian musicians teamed up with The Oaktree Foundation once again to bring the choir out to Australia for a three-week music tour from Melbourne to Sydney. The choir performed their own songs and also teamed up with the Australian musicians once again to share the music they had written together. The choir inspired audiences all over Australia and were successful in raising funds for the World Changers Academy, a life-skills and leadership training course based in South Africa, not far from the choir’s hometown of Kwa Nyuswa. The choir performed at diverse concerts and media events including schools, churches, town halls, Federation Square in Melbourne, and the Palais Theatre in Melbourne with rock band Evermore. They also featured heavily in media – making appearances on Channel 7’s Sunrise program, ABC’s The Arts Show, and the Channel 9, ABC and SBS news.

“The bond we have with the choir through our love of music is magical. We were able to have a lasting impact on audience members in such a unique and positive way, by using music and performance to show them that despite our cultural and geographical differences, we come together as one,” said Freya.

Freya is now excited about building these relationships and cultural exchange within another cultural context and also allowing a new group of people to share in this uplifting and life changing experience. Freya is on the hunt for ten musicians, dancers and story tellers/theatre performers.

Please contact Freya on: 0434 877 838 or freya@eccointernational.org
Applications close September 25