Two sisters from Afghanistan have be engaged in a musical resistance to the Taliban’s repression of women. They began making videos of poems against the repression and in celebration of women’s strength, singing the poems, and posting them to social media. They hide their identities under the burkas they are supposed to wear in public,… Read more »
Category: Women
Margaret Bonds, “The Montgomery Variations”
“The Montgomery Variations” is a group of freestyle variations based on the Negro Spiritual theme “I Want Jesus to Walk with Me.” Bonds begins with a bold statement of the theme which continues in dramatic variations throughout the piece in the same key, major and minor. Bonds wrote “The Montgomery Variations” following a visit to… Read more »
Bells from Bullets–Stephanie Mercedes
Artist Stephanie Mercedes from Washington, D.C. is an artist of transformation, turning bullets into bells, weapons into music (click here for her personal website). She sees bells as a spiritual sound medium that purify space. Also, in a time when there is so much gun violence, bells are instruments of mourning, ways to express our… Read more »
Ukrainian Madonna and Rusudan Gotsiridze
A month into the Russian invasion of Ukraine a powerful story and photo emerged of a 27-year old Ukrainian mother who shielded her 6-week old baby as the Russians shelled Kyiv. The mother named Olga, received 24 wounds from flying glass while her baby was kept safe. The mother is recovering in a hospital and… Read more »
Noella Wiyaala
With her stage name of only Wiyaala, she is an Afro-pop singer from Ghana. She sings in her native language of Sissala, English, and various other Ghanaian languages, often combining them in one song. After a breakout year in 2013 with many music awards, Wiyaala became an ambassador for UNICEF. In that capacity she has… Read more »