Dear Friends and Participants in our project,
We are very pleased to tell you that the interviews you gave last year for our project “Bengali Music and Musicians in the UK” are now downloaded onto the Swadhinata Trust website and are available for listening.
We still have a few improvements to make to the website i.e. giving everyone’s full name and also adding the written summary of your interview. The summaries are all prepared, they just need to be added to the website.
Please go to swadhinata.org.uk/music/ and find your interview. We would like you to listen to your interview and let us know if you are happy with it. We can change anything if necessary.
You can also see information about our project on the main page of the website under ‘current projects’.
We are still waiting for the British Library Sound Archives to upload our interviews, and will let you know when this is completed.
We are currently taking more interviews and also more recordings of performances of interviewees. Last summer we recorded the Boishaki Mela and that will be added to the website.
This year we will be recording interviews and music for the Altab Ali Story to be performed on May 4th at the Rich Mix. Please note this date – May 4th. For those of you who may not know about this excellent and important play it has been written by Julie Begum, and this is its second production with Mukul and the Ghetto Tigers. Please come if you can !
Another concert we will be recording and interviewing for is on July 5th at Waterman’s Arts Centre, Brentford. This is a concert of Baul musicians from West Bengal, including the musician Ananda Gopal Das, who I have contact with and visit regularly in Santiniketan. The concert is organised by the Asian Music Circuit. Please note this date. This promises to be an excellent concert – a one off – so please come if you can ! Go to AMC website for details.
Please get in touch with us with any queries, and also you can leave a comment on the Swadhinata Trust website if you wish.
Thank you once again for your very valuable contribution and participation in this project.
With best wishes
Val and Julie