It’s been a wonderful first day at the International Council for Traditional Music World Conference in Astana, Kazakhstan at the Kazakh National University of Arts! You can read more about the opening events at this website on the blog. Tonight we were treated to a spectacular concert showcase of Kazakh National U of Arts student and faculty (including the Provost!). Performances by singing storytellers were featured in the concert so I’d like to share a concert photo with you. This student ensemble, led by their teacher, a woman, in playing an instrument that appears to be have been played, historically, by male performers only (much like the bandura it seems)! For more videos (including a bardic performance), follow me on twitter @m_ostashewski and check out the blog on my website at marciaostashewski.ca!

We are so proud to have had the Singing Storytellers “Sunjata Story” filmic material previewed in London, England at a SOAS conference on identities last week! LISTEN to Cherif Keita tell us about the story during his recent interview on the BBC!

Hawa Kasse Made Diabate, Fode Lassana Diabate, Professor Cherif Keita performing at the Singing Storytellers Symposium.

Podcasts of Singing Storytellers Symposium presentations and performances are now online on our website! Find them here – and share them with your friends and colleagues.

One of the legacy components of Singing Storytellers research and public outreach project is an edited collection that includes scholarly articles and transcriptions of interviews with artist/practitioners – a critical dialogue between academic and practitioner perspectives. This edited collection will be published through McGill-Queen’s University Press (MQUP). See here for the full “Call for Submissions” – deadline for proposals, 15 June 2015.

Listen this Sunday night, March 15th to the Blue Grotto on CKJM FM Coopérative Radio Chéticamp – 97.5 FM in Cape Breton, 9pm-midnight Atlantic Time! Host Myron Syms will be playing some of bard Julian Kytasty’s music from the Singing Storytellers CD production Songs of Truth!

Listen TONIGHT online or over the airwaves at 8 – 9 pm Atlantic Time to Wendy Bergfeldt’s CBC Island Echoes: a special Singing Storytellers feature, “I Wish I Was With Them Again’: Diasporic Longing in Contemporary Cape Breton Song” by Amanda Daly Berman (Boston University).

Check back frequently to the Singing Storytellers website – for news and notifications of podcasts, for new films and other ongoing project activities.

Check out these two new podcasts that include concert recordings from Singing Storytellers performances! Drawing on footage from the fall 2014 concerts and new interviews, CBC’s Wendy Bergfeldt created two Island Echoes shows: Bards of the World Part 1, and Part 2 – featuring Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté and Lassana Diabaté. And – if you are currently in London! – you’ll want to check out a concert involving these two extraordinary Malian musicians, at the RNCM, Feb 26th, 2015!

Many Singing Storytellers participants and community audience members will remember the exquisite concert of Croatian traditional music performed at St. Mary’s Polish Parish in Whitney Pier. Sadly, today, this beautiful church that was more than a century old, has burned. Our hearts go out to the members of the Parish. More details here on CBC.

Wendy Bergfeldt continues to share the stories and songs of Singing Storytellers in CBC podcasts – see her CBC Mainstreet Cape Breton website for a full listing, to date. New podcasts posted in the last few days include: Singing the Stories of Injustice: Bards as Witness and Language Matters with Bob Holman. Continue to watch our blog for more podcast postings!

Here are some of Wendy Bergfeldt’s interviews with Singing Storytellers that aired recently on CBC-Cape Breton: the Malian griots, and bandurist Kytasty’s Songs of Truth, ahead of our CD release. Stay tuned for links to more Singing Storytellers podcasts!