View full People in Your Neighbourhood schedule here and get tickets here
As part of the British Council New Zealand's Creative Cities programme we have our flagship event called PIYN - People In Your Neighbourhood which launched March 2009. Planning for the 2010 event is currently underway. PIYN 2010 will involve live shows in Auckland, Taupo and Wellington May 2010, as well as UK visitors USO and acclaimed street poet and urban creative guru Charlie Dark (Attica Blues, Blacktronica). The event in 2010 will focus on participatory media, livestream internet technology and online income generation toolkits for diverse aspiring creatives - stay tuned for more details.
The PIYN project involves aspiring artists and performers from Auckland’s ethnic communities, working with the best of contemporary UK talent, to create an album or other portable multimedia, and perform a live street-style urban show. We aim to explore and celebrate the unreconised artistic and urban talent in all of our neighbourhoods.
The British Council has an established global network of emerging leaders in the Arts, and a reputation for high quality delivery of cutting-edge projects. For this project in 2009, and again in 2010, BCNZ is involving the acclaimed UK string collective Urban Soul Orchestra.
Working with some of the emerging artists amongst Auckland’s Asian, Polynesian, Hispanic and European communities, an album has been recorded that includes ethnic musicians and songwriters, alongside modern Kiwi urban producers and artists, collaborating to create a work that has modern production values, whilst still retaining distinct elements of culture.
The bulk of the tracks will include both English and another language.
The album will act like long strands of a net, reaching out into ethnic communities in NZ and drawing the music back to a central creative hub. The idea is to create “stars†in each community. You can download the full album for free here.
In conjunction with the album release and promotion we will also be producing a live show to showcase the intercultural aspects of the project. The show will be performed at the Transmission Room in Auckland March 12th 2009, and at Womad Taranaki March 14th 2009.
The PIYN project is being supported by the Office of Ethnic Affairs, the Human Rights Commission and The Asia New Zealand Foundation.
The album project is creative commons, so anyone can take album files from our CCMixter site, and remix the tracks.
Redbull NZ are also on board with USO performing at a Redbull Studio Live session.
The UK Element:
USO was formed in the mid 90's by violinist and string arranger Stephen Hussey in response to a demand for a new generation of progressive and forward thinking string musicians, who embraced and encompassed the cosmopolitan and diverse music scene in London.
Made up of a multi-cultural blend of London's finest instrumentalists, the USO have spent 15 years collaborating with many of the industry's most celebrated and successful artists including Soul to Soul, Gabrielle, Nitin Sawhney, Groove Armada, Keane, M-People, Sly and Robbie, Omar and Shola Ama.
USO are in a league of their own when it comes to adding the lushness of strings to recorded and live music, from community and ethnic based projects to some of the most well regarded modern artists of our time.
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