“Playing For Change” uses music to RE_connect the world

For the first time ever, street musicians from the five continents will play together in Spain alongside local artists and sidewalk performers.

The special solidarity concerts are scheduled for December 11 in Seville (El Fuerte) and December 17 in Madrid (La Caja Mágica).

Tickets (€12) now available from Spain’s El Corte Inglés department store chain; proceeds will go entirely to social aid projects.

“RE_”, ACCIONA’s clarion call for making society aware of the urgent need to take an active part in things that can only be accomplished if we all act in unison, has organized special concerts by “Playing For Change”, a band made up of street musicians from all over the world. Currently, the group is enjoying enormous success with music fans everywhere with its version of the Ben E. King classic “Stand by me” on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM)

“Playing For Change” was set up by US record producer Mark Johnson. The band is living proof that music is a force capable of overcoming cultural, religious and political barriers, as well as national borders. The group will perform for the first time in Spain at solidarity gigs in Seville (El Fuerte, December 11) and Madrid (La Caja Mágica, December 17).

This will be the first time that the musicians of the “Playing For Change” movement perform together on-stage, playing alongside sidewalk musicians from Spain. Tickets (at €12) are now available from branches of Spain’s El Corte Inglés department store chain, and the proceeds from the performances will go entirely to social aid projects.

This solidarity initiative is backed by a number of Spanish artistes, among them Alejandro Sanz, Nena Daconte, Amaia Montero, Macaco, Kiko Veneno and Raphael, who all share the “Re_” vision of the world.

Apart from being a prefix for more than 250 highly meaningful verbs in the Spanish language (and more than 450 in English), “Re_” is one of the seven notes of the musical scale. It is now charged with significance by “Playing For Change”, a group of musicians that enables us to Re_connect with a music that transcends barriers, the sound of worldwide solidarity; to Re_interpret the reality that surrounds us, and to Re_new our vision of the world, tearing down frontiers of religion and politics.

Playing for Change: The beginnings

Ten years ago, Mark Johnson set up a mobile recording studio and set off across the globe looking for street musicians to record a cover of Ben E. King’s 1961 soul classic “Stand By Me”. Technology did the rest: Johnson put together a video with shots of each street musician at different spots on the planet. The song is a currently huge hit on You Tube where it has notched up fifteen million downloads to date.

Encouraged by the song’s success, Jonson set up the “Playing For Change” Foundation which provides financial compensation for the artistes that make up the movement. The Foundation also provides funds for setting up and running a number of music schools in countries including India, Nepal, Ghana and South Africa.