In 2005, after recording street musician, Roger Ridley, in Santa Monica, Mark Johnson began a remarkable journey. Moved by a crowd in a New York subway pausing in the morning rush to watch a pair of monk musicians, Johnson was enchanted by the power of music to bring together people who would otherwise ignore each other. Believing in the necessity of our coming together as a human race and that music is the best way to do this, Johnson embarked on a journey around the world with a mobile recording studio and crew. He filmed and recorded 100 musicians in locales from subways to African villages to the Himalayas, and from New Orleans to Johannesburg to Moscow to Jerusalem.

The result is Playing for Change, a multi-media movement that includes an online community, a documentary, Playing for Change: Peace Through Music, a series of concerts, and a cd/dvd that’s scheduled for general release on April 28.

Out of the project, the Playing for Change Foundation was created in 2007, to organize benefit concerts and other efforts to raise funds for building music and arts schools and other projects in communities in need of hope. So far, the Playing for Change Foundation has projects in Johannesburg and Guguletu, South Africa and in Dharamsala, India and Kathmandu, Nepal.

You can read more about Playing For Change here and here and here, and watch Mark Johnson’s interview with Bill Moyers here.

Want to get involved?

• Visit Playing for Change to find ways to participate.
• Join the Playing for Change street team to help spread the word.
• Connect with Playing for Change at Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and MySpace.
• Contact the Playing for Change Foundation to join the movement and find out how to attend a concert, view the film, host a screening, mentor a new musician, contribute a song, share some lyrics… or share others ways you’d like to contribute.
• But most of all, and for the pure pleasure and inspiration of it, watch the videos right here, and spread the word.

Tags:   Bill Moyers · Mark Johnson · Music · New Orleans · New York City Subway · Playing for Change · Roger RidleyNo Comments