Monthly Archives: April 2012

Eat for a Good Cause

Join the Carrefour Collaborative for a benefit dinner at Chez Violette on May 5th. The Carrefour Collaborative is a group firmly rooted in music that works on two major projects in Haiti. In their own words:

Messiah Brown Productions

Leogane, Haiti
The pilot project for the Carrefour Collaborative’s grant program involves a community of musicians in Leogane. Nearer to the epicenter of the earthquake than Port Au Prince, Leogane was devasted following the 2010 earthquake. In the wake of that tragedy, we have teamed up with local musicians to begin building a recording studio to serve the artistic community in Leogane. Messiah Brown Studios is currently fully functional and a myriad of musicians have come through to record Hip Hop, Haitian Roots, Reggae, Pop and all sorts of styles. We have finished recording a compilation enititledLeogane, Episant featuring a collection of local musicians. We hope to have a proper release for the album this summer as we continue to make improvements at the studio.

Ecole De Musique Dessaix Baptiste

Jacmel, Haiti
Part of the Carrefour Collaborative’s mission is to support existing arts institutions in Haiti. We are currently working to raise funds to sponsor a handful of teachers at the Dessaix Baptiste School of Music. Located in downtown Jacmel, Dessaix Baptiste has been providing music education to the underserved youth in Jacmel for over 15 years. Due to financial constraints, many of the professors have gone months without being paid for their work. This leads to inconsistency in the students’ education and decreased morale among staff at the school. It is our goal to support a group of dedicated professors in order to provide encouragement and stability for the workers and students of the school.

Help them out by coming to their dinner on May 5th in Chicago. If you can’t make it for dinner, you can donate by contacting them via their Facebook page.

Konbit Mizik Concert at Jakmel Ekspresyon May 4th and 5th

We are very excited to host Konbit Mizik at Jakmel Ekspresyon on May 4th and 5th for a concert by Amos Dolce, Rebel Layonn, Daddy X and Triniti. Konbit Mizik is a non-profit organization dedicated to recording and sharing music in Port Au Prince.  The Haitian music scene is richer because of their efforts. If you can’t come to our concert in Jacmel, take a listen to the artist that will be performing next Friday and Saturday.


 

Verge Art Fair NYC: May 3-6

Verge Art Fair, an annual art fair that takes place in New York City and Miami, has chosen Jakmel Ekspresyon as a beneficiary of their New York show.

Verge has donated booth space for Jakmel Ekspresyon Co-Director Sue Frame to sell prints to benefit our organization.

In addition, Verge is encouraging pre-sale ticket buyers to donate to us while buying a ticket. If you’re in New York City May 3rd through 6th, please stop by to support an arts powerhouse and visit with us at the Jakmel Ekspresyon booth.

VERGE NYC
159 Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village 

May 3 – May 6, 2012

Opening night reception: Thursday, May 3, 6-10pm

General Public Hours:
Noon – 8pm, Fri & Sat
Noon-6pm Sun
$10 day pass / $15 weekend pass
$15 opening night reception

Nou te fè yon bon pati nan Chicago!

Mesamis, mwen te gen bon nouvèl jodi a!

Nou te gen bèl pati nan Chicago pou ede òganizasyon nou yo. Nou gen apeprè 10 pousan nan pri lwaye pou bati kay nou yo. Tout moun Jakmel ta renmen mizik la ak danse. jodi a. Mwen espere pou foto byento.

My friends, I’ve got good news today. We had a nice party in Chicago for aiding our organization. We got about 10 percent of rent for our building. All Jakmel people would have liked the music and dancing. I hope for photos soon.

We’re Here!

image

Where are you?

Ra Ra Yo! Tonight!

Ra Ra Yo!

Live in Chicago or Chicagoland? Come out to see Environmental EncroachmentMC Sparkplug, and Low End Theory  at Martyr’s tonight. Check out Martyslive.com for advance tickets or get tickets at the  door  for only $10! All proceeds from the show go to help Jakmel Ekspresyon.

See you tonight.


We have a winner!

Congratulations Michelle Raz! She is our randomly selected winner of a pair of tickets to Ra Ra Yo! the Jakmel Ekspresyon fundraiser this Wednesday.

Congratulate her in person at Martyr’s. We’ll have some great music for a good cause. Don’t forget, you can get advance tickets for $10 from http://www.martyrslive.com/

Win Free Tickets to Ra Ra Yo!

Live in Chicago or Chicagoland? Want to come and see Environmental Encroachment, MC Sparkplug, and Low End Theory for FREE? You’ve got two ways to enter the drawing to win. Simply comment on this post or on our Facebook page. Tell us why you want to go to the show in three sentences or less. On Monday night April 16th at 8pm Central we’ll randomly pick one winner for a pair of free tickets to this show.

We’ll see the rest of you at Martyr’s on Wednesday. Check out Martyslive.com for advance tickets.

Haiti Communitere – our pals in Port Au Prince

Check out the new website of Haiti Communitere (formerly Grassroots United) of Port Au Prince. This organization has done big work focused on the tent towns of Haiti’s capital. Their Ubuntu Blox project is very inspiring. Partnering with women who live in the Cite Soleil neighborhood, Haiti Communitere hopes to carry out two important goals – constructing homes for those that do not have them and a reuse of commonly discarded materials.

The Ubuntu team are implementing street clean-ups and rubbish collection points to take Styrofoam food containers and film plastic out of the canals and drains around Port-au-Prince to repurpose as building materials. The materials are packed into rice bags and compressed into uniformly sized building blocks using a manual compression machine. The lightweight, flexible nature of the blocks makes them far more earthquake resistant than typical brick or concrete structures. A model Ubuntu home was recently tested for seismic resistance, and passed a simulated 8.2 earthquake with minimal damage.

Good Friday Rara

It’s not everyday that you hear the sound of rara music in Haiti. According to Jakmel Ekspresyon Administrator Aaron Funk, you can’t escape it these days in Jacmel.

Rara is a type of festive, hypnotic music played during Easter Week. The performers march from town to town in colorful costumes and play trumpets, drums and maracas. If you want to learn more about Rara in English, check out Elizabeth McAlister’s site.