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mafi wasta
antonio tonelli
It's now been a full three months since we left the accursed emirate of Dubai. Whilst there, we did try to stay positive though everything and everyone around us was affected by a special kind of madness that seems to inflict those exposed to the materialism, double-standards, and just plain nastiness that is manifest in that "city of gold". Whilst there were a few honourable exceptions, the lack of basic human feeling we were exposed to in Dubai left a mark on us that has only just started to wear off. I would urge all of you to have a good look at Nick McGeehan's website, MAFI WASTA, for a cold hard look at the reality of life in the UAE for those who are being used to build the Arabian Dreamland, and whose blood, bones and bodies are the real raw construction materials for the seven-star hotels, golf courses and palm islands that are so famous around the world. Further information (courtesy of Wikipedia) can be read online at: Human Rights in the UAE.
Fri 21st March 2008
Some good news now... I've been offered a place on the MMus Musicology course at Leeds University. Aside from having a Mongolian language department, Leeds is also the university at which the current Monogolian President, Enkhbayar, studied prior to returning to Mongolia in time for the democratic revolution. His time at Leeds University was marked by his access to the University library which "...enabled him for the first time to read the works of "Soviet dissidents and European intellectuals". He translated into Mongolian short stories by Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling and - his particular favourite - Aldous Huxley." [Ed's note: Many thanks to my fellow Mealody Jazz Club artist and Mongolphile Jimi Fallows and his excellent Ulaanbanjo Blog for this information.] No prizes for guessing the most likely subject of my Ethnomusicological research. And I also see an opportunity to return to Mongolia presenting itself in due course - something I wouldn't have believed possible when we left the country back in May last year.
Sat 29th March 2008
A frustrating time in Italy recently. The Istitute Musicale Tonelli is a music academy set inside the grounds of the beautiful San Rocco church in Carpi. Antonio Tonelli, who was born in Carpi in 1686 and died there on xmas day 1765, was an Italian cellist and composer famed for his educational work (and a realisation of a Corelli continuo). A visit near the start of the month revealed room after room for the practice and study of music and a piano in each, along with a medium-size recital room complete with stage and grand piano. Yesterday I went along armed with a couple of sentences explaining that I was a pianist in need of a piano, and that I wanted to know how much it cost to rent a room with one for a couple of hours each week. I wasn't ready in the slightest for the answer my query was to receive - "no". That's it. No. I was ready for it to be expensive maybe, or only possible occasionally, but not "no". So I left, pianoless as before, and starting to feel the frustration of not having the ability to express myself on my chosen instrument for the last three months. How music can be locked up and denied like this is distressing in the extreme. I didn't expect to find such a closed shop mentality in such a traditionally artistic-minded country as Italy. Maybe this is my time in the wilderness after all. Somebody get me to a piano before I go mad!