Volunteering overseas | Help with us | SandBlast

Pass it on!

10/3/2016

Sandblast recently received a wonderful donation of a stunning Gibson electric guitar from a stranger, a man from Yorkshire, who prefers to remain anonymous. He wanted to share this guitar with others and give back some of the joy music has given him throughout his life. He chose to give the guitar to Sandblast after reading our statement of how his donation would benefit Saharawis in the refugee camps.

This generous gesture has truly touched and inspired us. In fact it inspired us so much that we decided to launch a campaign to get more guitar donations for the Saharawi refugee camps. The campaign is called PASS IT ON and operates on the belief that there are many other strangers out there and friends, of course, who would like to share with us something that can make a difference.

SO if you have a spare guitar you can share with the Saharawi refugees, please PASS IT ON. But we don't want to limit what you can give to only material things. If you have music skills that can benefit some of the musicians and music teachers we work with, PASS IT ON! Or if you are a music producer, a band manager, a music promoter with a yearning for adventure and want to share your experience, PASS IT ON! And if you want to get involved but don’t have anything to donate, at the moment, you can always make a monetary contribution however small or big to help us with running costs.

You can click on the link below to donate and win your own copy of the Studio-Live-recorded song Standing Man, by singer-songwriter Pia de Keyser. Life is enhanced when you share; PASS IT ON!

Newsletter September 2016

9/14/2016

Greetings from Sandblast,

Hope you have had an enjoyable summer and feel recharged again to enjoy the active months ahead. We are now back in action and in this issue will highlight exciting news and developments since our Mid-summer Western Sahara Festival, in July, along with upcoming events which you shouldn’t miss.

OUR NEWS
Standing Man EP now available!
We are thrilled to announce that the Standing Man EP, recorded in the camps by singer-songwriter Pia de Keyser, is finally ready to be heard by the world.

Standing Man refers to the Moroccan soldiers that have been standing on the 2700km-long military wall in Western Sahara for 30 years. It was recorded at the Studio-Live equipped studio of the Saharawi National Music School by our very own Studio-Live-trained sound engineers. Read more.

Aziza Brahim in concert at Union Chapel on Sept 22
Leading international Saharawi singer Aziza Brahim is back to the UK with beautiful songs from her latest album Abbar El Hammada. Sandblast was the first organization to invite Aziza to the UK in 2007. She also headlined the launch of our Studio-Live project at The Roundhouse in 2012. We are proud to be part of her journey in becoming an outstanding cultural ambassador for the Saharawi cause of self-determination. Click to book tickets

Stave House in the Sahara back to the refugee camps
We are very excited that our colleague Violeta Ruano will be returning to the Saharawi refugee camps for 3 months in October for the second stage of the early music education project Stave House in the Sahara. There is still time to become a sponsor of one of the children for only £30. Interested?

Sandblast is delighted to be one of the main partners of this project. We are deeply grateful to Ruth Travers from Stave House for generously donating the programme to the camps and to The London College of Music which has supported the project in various ways. These partnerships along with some amazing support we've received from individual donors has made it possible for things to happen and develop. We're also thrilled to announce that Oxfam Solidarité (Belgium) have recently given €2500 to refurbish a room to create a music-making space for children, in the camp of Boujdour, in support of Stave House in the Sahara. Read more

Fundraising and Run the Sahara
2016 has been spectacular fundraising year for Sandblast. In total, we have raised nearly £30,000 for our project work in the Saharawi refugee camps. This has been thanks to the amazing efforts of our 2016 Run the Sahara runners and also to the generosity of donors who have shown support for our projects in the camps, which currently are:

Saharawi Artivism Fund (SAF), Studio-Live Local and Stave House in the Sahara.

We now have a nice group of runners coming together for the 2017 Run the Sahara race in the Algerian Sahara next February. We hope to recruit at least 5 more people to join before the registration deadline on December 15. Please help us spread the word!. And if you are a former particpant, we would love you to encourage others to join us in 2017.

Donations and Van hunting
This year has also been a great year for music equipment donations made in support of Studio-Live Local. We got a mint-shaped 24-track Tascam mobile recording studio in July and in early September a lovely electric guitar from David in Yorkshire.

Our next big mission is to get all the donations of the past 18 months transported in a donated or second-hand van, down to the camps, by the end of this year. If anyone loves these kinds of ventures and would like to help us please get in touch. We really need it!

Olive Branch Arts Cabaret Extravaganza on Sept 18
Come along for this fun night of fund-raising for their work with youth, women and theatre in the Saharawi refugee camps. Click here to book tickets

Music of Exile film teaser
Have you heard of the upcoming film Music of Exile from the Saharawi of Western Sahara? Directed and recorded by Katch Holmes it will be featured at WOMEX '16 in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) next Oct 21. Click on the pic to watch a short teaser and get inspired by the revolutionary history of Saharawi music!

Studio-Live track "Standing Man" now available

9/12/2016

We are thrilled that the fabulous Standing Man track by Pia de Keyser, done in collaboration with Saharawi artists in the camps, is finally ready to be heard by the world.

You can now listen to a 30 second teaser of the track below. The Standing Man track has been kindly donated to Sandblast by Pia, to help us with our on-going fundraising efforts for Studio-Live.

If you would like to download the the entire 6-minute-long song, we ask that you please make a donation for it, so we can support locally-run recording studios to become up and running in two of the Saharawi refugee camps in Boujdour and Smara in the next 12 months. These studios will be run entirely by our Studio-Live-trained sound engineers. Hurray! We don't want to tell you how much to donate; that will be for you to decide. What we are sure of is you will love what you hear!

To donate:
http://campaign.justgiving.com/charity/sandblast/studiolivelocal

Please send us an email to info@sandblast-arts.org after you've made the donation and we'll send you the full track.

The story of the Standing Man recording:
Composed and sung by the super-talented Pia de Keyser, this song refers to the Moroccan soldiers that have been standing on the 2700km-long military wall in Western Sahara for over 30 years. It was recorded in the refugee camps in February 2015 by local sound engineer trainee, Shaia Wali, at the Saharawi National Music School in a Studio-Live equipped studio. Shaia was trained over a year period in a Studio-Live programme of sound-recording workshops delivered by the tireless and dedicated Sara McGuinness, who teaches at the London College of Music. Shaia was assisted by Rasha Shaheen, a music teacher visiting the camps for the first time, who also participated in Run the Sahara in 2015. See below the wonderfully quirky fast-paced video she did of the week-long recording session with Pia.

40 years since the death of Polisario founder

6/9/2016

TODAY it is 40 years since the death of El Uali Mustapha Sayed, the founder of the Polisario Front and its Secretary General just before the recently deceased Mohamed Abdelaziz.

At Sandblast we'd like to commemorate El Uali's life, deeds and death in the battlefield by sharing the article 'Shaheed El Uali Band and Beyond: 40 Years of Resistance Music in Western Sahara', written by our Project Leader Violeta Ruano about Shaheed El Uali, the first Saharawi national band, which was created in the Saharawi refugee camps and named after him shortly after his death!

Studio-Live: training and expansion II

12/3/2013

2013 closes as a fantastic year for Studio-Live. We hope the next year is even better!

September 2013 – A second Studio Live workshop in sound recording concluded on Sept 18 with a showcasing of music tracks recorded and mixed by our fabulous technical team being trained in the Saharawi refugee camps, near Tindouf in SW Algeria. The music was played through the PA Stagepas 660i newly acquired by Sandblast for the project. Our founding director, Danielle, who had arrived a few days earlier, was there to hand out certificates to the six students (3 boys and 3 girls) after completing the intensive 12-day training period with Sara McGuinness. Numerous musicians also collaborated during the workshop to take advantage of the opportunity to be professionally recorded and give a chance for the students to do practical exercises in how to run a recording session. The workshop was set up this time in the headquarters of the Saharawi youth organisation, known by its acronym the UJSARIO, in the camp of Boujdour. This has been possible thanks to the official invitation and facilitation offered by female governor Ezza Brahim to hold the Studio-Live workshop in her newly established camp.

Sara with students

Students having a go

Studio-Live: Training and expansion

5/8/2013

At Sandblast we've been busy throughout the first half of the year developing the different strands of our music empowerment project Studio-Live. Here's a summary of activities:

January 2013 – The Sandblast Team travelled to Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain) to help coordinate a Historical Encounter of Saharawi Musicians living in Spain at the Music Conservatory of Music ‘Jesús Guridi’. The meeting, organised in collaboration with legendary revolutionary singer Oum Reghia, gathered more than 40 musicians and cultural figures, including singer Oum Dleila, musician Bachir Sidi, composer and guitarist Ali Mohamed, poet Ali Salem Iselmu, and young musicians Yslem and Lehsen, among many others. Studio-Live was presented for the first time in Spain. Throughout the day, interesting conversations sparkled around Saharawi music, its role in the struggle and its current state. The day-long event concluded with a concert in the evening, given by a number of the attending musicians, who delighted the audience with legendary songs such as ‘Sahara is not for sale’, by Oum Reghia, and ‘A song to the martyrs’, by Oum Dleila, who had not sung in more than 8 years.

Young Saharawi rapper Yslem during the conference

Saharawi musicians during the concert

Studio-Live gets off the ground!

12/15/2012

2012 has been an incredible year for the development of our music empowerment project Studio-Live. Here we give you a summary of what we've been up to so far!

February-March 2012 – The Studio-Live team, made up this time of Danielle and Violeta Ruano (Sandblast), spent two weeks in the camps. We participated in Run the Sahara 2012 as part of the UK group who were raising funds for Studio-Live. The trip included a cultural day organized by Sandblast where all the runners could enjoy learning about Saharawi traditions and music with fantastic group Salwan. We also interviewed different musicians across generations about their ideas, dreams and aspirations, discussing Studio-Live and the development of Saharawi music in the near future with them, and gaining a much better idea on the best way for them to take full advantage of the project. We visited the recently inaugurated ENAMUS and learned about the work they plan to develop there. Music director Leily and coordinator Lebsir introduced us to the students and showed us the facilities, including the space where the recording studio is being set up. Sandblast also provided the means to install Internet in the school and discussed possibilities for a more reliable source of energy than the current generator.

Young Saharawi singer Shmeidah and band

Sandblast with Enamus crew

Aziza Brahim in Sahara Nights

5/24/2012

We’re doing mini features of our wonderful artistic line-up @ Sahara Nights. And we’re starting with our headliner, fantastic Saharawi singer and percussionist Aziza Brahim.

Aziza is regarded one of the most talented musical voices from Western Sahara. She was born in the Saharawi refugee camps, but spent many years studying in Cuba. This influenced her music, an innovative blend of traditional Saharawi hawl, West African rhythms and Latin Jazz. Singing in Hassania, the native language of her homeland, and Spanish, Aziza has been a great ambassador for the Saharawi cause, dedicating all her singing to her people.

Aziza Brahim © Djogo Niemeyer

Many of her songs are influenced by the breath-taking poetry of her grandmother, Lkhadra Mabruk. Aziza’s new album, Mabruk, which will be released in June, is an homage to her and her great labour as commentator of the 16 years of Saharawi. This is a video of single “La tierra derrama lágrimas.”

Further info about Aziza:
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/azizabrahim
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aziza.brahim.official
Blog: http://aziza-brahim.blogspot.co.uk/

Saharawi band Tiris

11/1/2007

Tiris is a Saharawi music and dance sensation from the refugee camps in South West Algeria. Fusing the best of tradition and innovation in a raw and powerful way, they sing of love, loss, and their long struggle and aspirations for independence in their homeland of Western Sahara.
Named after one of the most symbolic and sacred places in the cultural lore of Western Sahara, Tiris is a group of vocalists who perform accompanied by the traditional t’bal drum, the four stringed tidinit, electric guitar and keyboard-synthesizer and accordion. The 8-member strong group accentuates the outstanding voices of young rising star, Mufeed and Shueta, known locally as the “Aretha Franklin” of the Sahara, who has sung for years for the struggle.