With an emphasis on reaching countries in the Middle East, the former Soviet Union and Central Asia, American Voices (www.americanvoices.org) presents American music as cultural outreach. The organization was founded by Executive Director John Ferguson in 1993 and since then American Voices artists have performed concerts, workshops and master classes as well as interactive performance projects to over 200,000 audience members in 79 countries on five continents and reached millions more through live television and radio broadcasts.
Ferguson has just returned from five weeks in the Middle East, where in Cairo he met with officials of the Cairo Conservatory and the Cairo Opera House. He was also in Beirut on his way to Iraq and met with future project partners for American Voices’ planned summer music academy program in Lebanon in 2009. Ferguson has also made agreements for the creation of a documentary about the upcoming Unity Youth Performing Arts Academy in Iraq in July.
In March, Jazz educator, Dr. Gene Aitken and Ferguson undertook a month-long program in Erbil and Suleimaniya, in northern Iraq where they performed three concerts before large and enthusiastic audiences that jammed into halls to hear performances of Herbie Hancock, Eubie Blake and Johannes Brahms. They also worked with over 300 students and young professionals. Highlights of the program included jazz, classical and chamber music workshops with students of the Institute and College of Fine Arts in Erbil and musicians from Suleimaniya’s Wind Orchestra and chamber music ensembles. American Voices donated more than $15,000 worth of music scores, jazz methods, instruments and equipment, such as reeds and mouthpieces directly to the workshop participants and musicians. Read more about it at www.americanvoices.org/projects/2008/Iraq.
American Voices can be seen in action though its YouTube Channel (www.youtube.com/user/americanvoices), where there are now 150 videos available online.
This includes playlists devoted to special projects such as the 2007 Unity Academy in Iraq and Jazz Bridges in Western China. Ferguson also aims to provide timely updates of American Voices’ ongoing projects through his blog — http://rovingpianist.blogspot.com.
