Playing For Change Doc Headed to PBS

Musical travels across the globe for peace and good will to men.

By Blurt Staff

In the new issue of BLURT, just hitting newsstands, we've got a feature on Playing For Change project which has been turned into a CD/DVD set. Playing For Change - Songs Around the World, was released on April 28^th by Hear Music.

The backstory: Grammy winning producer/engineer Mark Johnson and his team traveled the globe with a single-minded passion to connect the world though music. Their ambitious journey took them from post-apartheid South Africa, through the ancient sites of the Middle East, to the remote beauty of the Himalayas and beyond.  Using innovative mobile technology, they filmed and recorded more than 100 musicians, largely outdoors, in parks, plazas and promenades, in doorways, on cobblestone streets and amid hilly pueblos.  Each captured performance created a new mix in which essentially the artists are all performing together, albeit hundreds or thousands of miles apart. The resulting documentary is part of a global effort to inspire peace through music and to connect diverse musicians worldwide, especially those in regions of conflict.

Now, the Playing For Change: Peace Through Music film is set to air nationally as part of special programming airing on PBS Stations in August 2009 (check local listings). 

Some of the magical moments include Ireland's Omagh Community Youth Choir, comprised of a mixture of Catholic and Protestant teens, singing "Love Rescue Me," written by U2 and Bob Dylan.  The film begins with American street musicians Roger Ridley and Grandpa Elliott harmonizing with Clarence Bekker from the Netherlands amid an assembly of artists from Russia, Spain, Venezuela, France and Brazil on the Ben E. King/Leiber & Stoller classic "Stand By Me," the video of which has already become an internet sensation.
 

Also included is an exhilarating version of the Bob Marley classic "War/No More Trouble." This segment includes musicians from The Congo, Israel, India, Ireland, South Africa, the U.S., Zimbabwe and Ghana, along with Bono and Bob Marley. Marley's "One Love" proved to be an irresistible choice for the producers as well, who enlisted Keb' Mo' to sing with performers from India, Israel, Nepal, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

 
Playing for Change began a decade ago, the brainchild of Grammy-winning music producer and engineer Mark Johnson.  In 1998 Mark teamed with producer Whitney Kronke Burditt to create the award-winning Playing for Change: A Cinematic Discovery of Street Music (2004). The relationship between Playing for Change and Hear Music (the joint venture between Concord and Starbucks) was facilitated by legendary television producer Norman Lear, owner of Concord Music Group.

 
Seeing great need in many of the locations where the crew filmed and recorded inspired PFC to establish the Playing for Change Foundation, a distinct non-profit entity which provides resources - including facilities, technology, musical instruments and education - to musicians and their communities.  The Foundation's first project, the Ntonga Music School in South Africa, was completed in January 2009.  Its second, the Mehlo Arts Center in Johannesburg, will open later in 2009.

 
Playing for Change is headquartered in Los Angeles.  For more information, please visit the website: www.PlayingForChange.com.