Based in Copenhagen, musicians are involved in children's education and youth projects, music for ceremonies, and they have recently contributed to a special colour exhibition in Copenhagen. Their projects include exploring Celtic music of the haunting kind, music research, and music and the natural laws. Denmark recently pioneered and hosted a unique performance of Dido and Aeneas, bringing together an international operatic troupe Music Contemplata. The picture shows this Opera troupe in performance in Copenhagen July 2004.

Based in London, music exploration and research has been active since 1975. For the last two years the Mosaic Orchestra in England have been concentrating on composing and recording a spectrum suite, aiming to represent the nature and essence of the seven fold colour spectrum in new music. In its early form the spectrum suite had its first public performance last year, and a CD release and concert is planned for November 2004. The picture shows them performing with international guests at a special concert, Drawing Strength from Within, which contributed funds to the International Red Cross.

From Choir Silverblue to Choirproject Europe
After a multimedia performance last year in Cologne, involving choir, solo voices, instrumental ensembles, a moderator, a storyteller, coloured lights and beamer projected pictures on the wall, the choir and musicians in Germany are now in the midst of a new project. Whilst the previous one was themed around "Humanity" (the CD "simply human" will be available soon!) and included a kaleidoskop of classical, traditional folk and new original compositions, as well as sound experiments, this new project has "Europe" as its focus.

"A European Symphony", World Premiere on November 1st 2004
The new program centers around a new composition by Volkmar Studtrucker, a music teacher and composer living near Nuremberg. This work is written for orchestra, choir and solovoices, and features in its message not national themes but offers personal attitudes about life and living that apply to all, suggesting a process of personal development by freedom of choice. The singers will be singing in five European languages, which clothe the lines of thinking with different national "sound costumes". The journey leads from a hearty encouragement to be true to oneself in German, to questions and answers about honour and honesty in French, to a moving song of deep gratitude in honour of mother earth in Russian, over to the inspiration of being in the magic of the now in English, and finishes with a passionate ode to Creation herself, the feelable God and the greatness of a human life developing itself and contributing its song of life in this light.
We will be performing major parts of this inspiring composition in the arrangement for piano and chamberensemble, together with other pieces, and are enjoying the process of learning, searching, finding and developing both ourselves and the music on the way. We are very happy to have Volkmar Studtrucker conducting the European Symphony in concert and our friend Massimo Crispiniani from Rome to sing the baritone solos.
Katrin Waldraff and Peter Moldovany

The group in Greece is flourising and we look forward to displaying pictures and news about them soon. In the meantime, if you would like more information about the Greek WMOS, please contact us.

This is the first CD from the Experiband, a group of musicians and dancers from the Netherlands. Starting in 2003 the group embarked on a journey of discovery into Moroccan Rhythms and music. This triggered new music and dance and gradually the ways and means of working revealed themselves, attracting many other natures and essences such as Turkish, Tibetan and unknown and enigmatic ones. Most of the music was composed and recorded 'live', and came together in response to the dancers and what moved us at that time, many times in a surprising way.

For more information about WMOS in the Netherlands, please contact WMOS or send an email direct to Nieneke Elsenaar.

Reflections from a musical celebration in Ireland 2003
"It was really wonderful night - I was moved to tears in the first half particularly with the Irish songs (Mo Ghui Dhuit and My Lagan Love) and had all these mental pictures go on when I listened to the music. It definitely needs to be an annual event and next time, now that people know you, you will need a bigger venue. People will definitely love this."

"I normally don't like these kind of things but I really loved the concert - particularly the buzz and hum 'My Lagan Love' - it was other worldy and reminded me of Riverdance. You definitely need to do it again."

"For the first time I have gone to an event like that and felt that I was walking into a person's home."

"…The musicians were all lovely people… they left the place better than they found it… it's not often that there is such a fine night in the Theatre."

There are numerous workshops, activities and projects in Israel, including a musical group known as "The Calling Sounds Ensemble", who have performed several concerts under the title "Music for Hope", where they also include explorations into astrology music. Recently also an amazing concert production took place with more to follow, by a classical ensemble, inviting both the Israeli Celtic band "Evergreen" and Nimrod Grinboim to participate in a program combining classical and folklore music. Musicians are also part of a village community project, where music is closely integrated within community life, with musicians providing music for all kinds of events, including ceremonies

Musicians from Italy, Denmark, Greece, USA, the Netherlands, Israel, Germany, England and Wales gathered in Rome in November 2004 for a four-day retreat, which included two concerts, tours of historic sites and new musical research into gender. The second concert was a family event, including children and guests from Orbitello. It was probably the most relaxed concert we ever did together. The audience and musicians seemed to merge. Everything flowed naturally with much lively participation from all. The concert included a mixture of original composition, classical and folklore music and singing from an Italian choir, Coro Ambra. Rome had so much to offer, from cuisine to fine art, opera, folk singing, historic sites - and marvellous hospitality.

The World Mosaic of Sound in New Zealand is pioneered by Don Brough. His CD of Astrological and Planets music is available in our music catalogue. Don has recently completed a new CD called "Atmospheres" including music inspired by an International Feminenza event in Crete in March, the tropic of Capricorn and special mountain places that he has visited recently in New Zealand. It's ambient in nature with very distinctive atmospheric flavours.

The group in Norway is flourising and we look forward to displaying pictures and news about them soon. Please contact us for further details about this group's activities.

World Mosaic of Sound musicians, based in Waunifor, are involved in classical, jazz, Welsh folk and contemporary music. The musicians have many links with the Welsh musical community, and perform in local festivals including the recent Arthurian Festival in Carmarthan. The band are pioneering the development of music for ceremonies, and also involved in exploration of different world music flavours including Hawaian and Balinese traditions.

Waunifor is a rural centre for learning, living and discovery which has hosted a number of international retreats for the World Mosaic of Sound. If you would like further information about either the centre or WMOS in Wales, please contact us.

The North East America group, based in New York, is one of our recent members. Joining following a retreat in Waunifor, the group is involved in a unique approach to storytelling for children through music and theatre. They give concerts and produce CDs under the name Teatro Imperfecto. You can visit Teatro Imperfecto's own site to find out more.

An extract from Kina's story of a recent event at an old folks home in Westchester:

'Mason looked at me, gesturing for me to join him on the recorder, but before we both knew it I turned around to face the audience and sang a most beautiful song to them, about what they must have seen in their lives, the wisdom of their age – it was stunning to us all. It was such an opal moment; we reached for words and music and found them together in harmony. When we were finished, our friends were saying, "What a perfect song for these people! Can you teach it to us?" But, of course we had to laugh because it was gone – a one off – pure essence theatre.'