In March 2013, Jesus Choir took part in an exciting and pioneering project, helping to bring the joy of music to children in the slums of the Indian city of Mumbai in cooperation with Songbound, a music outreach initiative established by Cambridge graduate Joseph Walters in 2011. Their collaboration with Songbound uses music to inspire disadvantaged communities in Mumbai by providing otherwise inaccessible life-changing opportunities. This trip represented the start of an ongoing collaboration with the charity Songbound, a charity which the Choir has taken deeply to heart after their awe-inspiring experience in Mumbai.

 

Joseph Walters (Founder and CEO of Songbound) and Mark Williams (Director of Music at Jesus College Cambridge), who were contemporaries as students at Cambridge University, believe that this collaboration could be not only inspirational and exciting but also life-changing for both Cambridge students and Mumbai children. Their shared reservations about foreign musicians visiting India only to perform to the social elite who can afford tickets to classical music concerts led to the project undertaken by the Choir of Jesus College in March 2013.  Mindful that this concern cannot simply be ameliorated by paying a one-off visit to a slum community to show off the quality of European music-making and conscious of the importance of sustaining cultural opportunities on a long-term basis, the Choir has been involved in numerous fundraising activities to support Songbound. We have three aims for the future:

1) the Choir of Jesus College will seek to continue to give financial support to the choirs that it has visited and worked with

2) the Choir will seek to consolidate the work that it has begun with return visits by individual choir members with the whole group returning ideally every three years, whilst also looking to support Songbound in its expansion into other cities in India and Sri Lanka

3) the Choir will seek to raise funds to help Songbound bring young singers to England to perform in Cambridge, so that the cultural exchange between the two countries can work in both directions.

You can see more pictures, watch footage of workshops and learn more about the recent project and the ongoing work of Songbound and Jesus College Choir at www.jesuscollegechoir.com and www.songbound.com.

Your support of this exciting collaboration is greatly appreciated.

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