Month: November 2017

Today is Giving Tuesday

“I think back to what Camus wrote about the fact that perhaps this world is a world in which children suffer, but we can lessen the number of suffering children, and if you do not do this, then who will do this?”  (Robert F. Kennedy, in an interview with David Frost shortly before his assassination, when asked how he would he like to be remembered)

Today, Tuesday, November 28, is a global day of giving.  Your contribution will enable us to finish recording Aberfan.  Click HERE to give.   

We’re near $10,000 — push this project over the halfway point!

Please give what you can and tell others.  All gifts are 100% tax deductible.  If you have already contributed to this campaign – thank you for being a part of this!

Laura Siersema is composer of Aberfan (7 pianos, voice and tools of rescue), a sponsored project of New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization.  All donations are tax deductible.  Your contribution ensures we can return to the studio to complete its recording.

Photo IC Rapoport, Aberfan, 1966

Year End Fundraising for “Aberfan”

“Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.” 
(Robert F. Kennedy, University of Cape Town, the land of apartheid, June 6, 1966)

Create your own ripple — make a tax-deductible donation to Aberfan beginning this Tuesday, a global day of giving that will take place on Tuesday, November 28.  Or at any time of the year.  Use the blue donation button located at the top right side of my website.  

We’re near $10,000 — push this project over the halfway point!

Aberfan is a sponsored project of New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization.  Contributions on behalf of Aberfan must be made payable to NYFA, and are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by  law.

Here is a demo sample of voice and piano parts, “Hymn” and “Rock Sequence”:  

On October 21, 1966, in the small mining village of Aberfan, Wales, a man-made mountain of coal waste catastrophically collapsed on a primary school, killing 116 children and 28 adults.  A Tribunal investigating the 1966 events found that the National Coal Board was entirely responsible for failing to act to prevent the disaster, though they were never prosecuted.

The Guardian: Readers recommend playlist: songs about slowing down

The Guardian

“Go Children Slow”, one of my songs off Talon of the Blackwater, is chosen!

“Here is this week’s playlist – (12) songs picked by a reader from hundreds of suggestions on last week’s callout…..“Go Children Slow” and the wonderful voice of Laura Siersema.”  (By Scott Blair)

What a great surprise.  So cool it’s from the UK.

Giving Tuesday

Do you believe “art and the encouragement of art is political in the most profound sense”?  (JFK, Remarks on behalf of the National Cultural Center, November 1962)

To affirm this statement, make a tax-deductible donation to Aberfan on #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving that will take place on Tuesday, November 28.  We’re near $10,000 — push this project over the halfway point!

You can give through the blue donate button, located at the top right side of my website.

Laura Siersema is composer of Aberfan (7 pianos, voice and tools of rescue), a sponsored project of New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization.  All donations are tax deductible.  Your contribution ensures we can return to the studio to complete its recording.

On October 21, 1966, in the small mining village of Aberfan, Wales, a man-made mountain of coal waste catastrophically collapsed on a primary school, killing 116 children and 28 adults.  A Tribunal investigating the 1966 events found that the National Coal Board was entirely responsible for failing to act to prevent the disaster, though they were never prosecuted.

(Photo, Getty Images, Aberfan 1966)

Poem for Aberfan

In 2016, Welsh poets Grahame Davies and Tony Curtis were commissioned to write a Sequence of poems, entitled Aberfan Voices, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster.  Each poem goes with a photograph by IC Rapoport.  This is the second of two posts introducing Grahame and Tony, sharing one each of their poems.

Both Tony and Grahame are serving as humanities scholars for my project Aberfan.  I am deeply honored and grateful for their participation in its unfolding and fullest, true expression.

Here is “Life”, written by Grahame Davies.

Life

Life is too big,

though children never know –

their world a nature-table, miniature,

seeds on a tray, a garden in a jar,

four walls of cut-out prints of autumn leaves

and a calendar that counts to Christmas.

Life is too big.

They never tell you that.

You’re never wise enough, never mature.

Take it from me:

your heart is never big enough

to hold it all – the deluge of the dark.

Stars are too distant

and the griefs too great.

Life is too big.

We try to make it fit

our columns and our canvases,

our lenses and our lines,

to make the immeasurable commensurate

with what we can contain:

words on a page,

a garden in a jar.

On October 21, 1966, in the small mining village of Aberfan, Wales, a man-made mountain of coal waste catastrophically collapsed on a primary school, killing 116 children and 28 adults.

Laura Siersema is composer of Aberfan (7 pianos, voice and tools of rescue), a sponsored project of New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt organization.  All donations are tax deductible.  Your contribution ensures we can return to the studio to complete its recording.

Photo IC Rapoport,  1966