As the world gears up for the Olympics, so the world’s musicians are gearing up for the Musequality 2012 World Busk.

From Monday June 11th to Sunday 17th June, buskers will be out on the streets all over the world to raise money for Musequality’s music education projects for disadvantaged children.

Taking this year’s theme of ‘Extreme Busking’ literally is the sub-aqua team at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, which is planning a daring underwater busk. Other highlights include folk band, Silvermoths, and singer-songwriter Laura Doggett’s appearance at the Bedford Park Festival in Chiswick.

Musicians on every kind of instrument and at all levels of skill have signed up in Belarus, Canada, the Czech Republic, Lebanon, Portugal, South Africa, Japan, Uganda and the US. Here in the UK, the event sees the world debut of Musequality volunteer David Tomlinson, who took up the clarinet last July following retirement and hopes to wow the public with his new-found prowess.

Everyone wherever they are is welcome to join in this year’s World Busk. Just decide what, where and when you want to play (check you have permission) and get out there. For more information or to sign up, visit www.worldbusk.org .

 

Musequality, a charity founded in 2007 to support music education projects for disadvantaged children in developing countries, has been organising its annual World Busk since 2009. The Busks so far have raised over £27,000. In 2010, the money raised was used to help the Holy Trinity Music School that was destroyed by the Haitian earthquake.

In 2009, the event set a world record for Biggest Co-ordinated Busk. Musequality was joined by 483 buskers in 105 acts on 44 pitches in 30 towns or cities in 17 countries on seven continents – and one sea. A band of officers played on cardboard instruments on HMS Illustrious; their collection box carried the warning ‘We play until you pay’.

In 2011 the Rothera Winter Crew entertained a handful of uninterested penguins in Antarctica, while performers at the Bedford Park Festival Speed-Busked in Chiswick.

London performed the first ever mutual live busk with the Elgon Youth Brass Band in Uganda via a telephone link.  

Many schools have participated in the event, including Grove Park Primary School in London, The Discovery School in Hong Kong and the Ban Mai Mok Cham school in Thailand. Some events were on an impressive scale, like the choirs, bands and acts who came together in Nigeria for a day of busking to raise funds for a local music project.

One of the busk’s proudest achievements was giving a voice to Palestinian refugee children in Beirut, who performed songs and classical music pieces on the violin and traditional Middle Eastern instruments in busy Hamra Street.

 For more information about the World Busk, email isobel.king@musequality.org or visit www.worldbusk.org To find out about Musequality visit www.musequality.org

June 7, 2012