Home Music Day- Celebrating Milwaukee’s Refugee Communities
Burmese, Congolese, Afro-Brazilian Bands Perform at Lynden Sculpture Garden, July 10
This year, we are offering HOME 2021, our celebration of Milwaukee’s refugee communities, as a series of dispersed events spanning the summer. Our next event is HOME Music Day, Saturday, July 10, 2021, from 12 noon to 5 pm. Music Day takes place on the grounds of the Lynden Sculpture Garden, 2145 West Brown Deer Road, Milwaukee, WI 53217. Admission is free.
The bands, in order of appearance, are Congo Gospel Music Band (Congolese), Karen Milwaukee Music Band (Burmese), Golden Melody Music Band U.S.A. performing with the Burmese Traditional Umbrella Dance by Mother’s Love (Burmese), Spring Star Music Band (Burmese), and Samba da Vida MKE (Afro-Brazilian percussion). More information on the participating bands below.
Images are available for download here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g30
Organized by the Refugee Steering Committee with Lynden’s Community Engagement Specialist, Kim Khaira, HOME 2021 events will take place outdoors on Lynden’s grounds. We hope that these events, when taken together, will capture the spirit of art, food, and performance that we experienced at the HOME 2019 outdoor festival. We invite you to come to the table and to leave with your bellies and hearts full.
Join us for more HOME 2021 events:
• HOME Cultural Plant Walks, July 17, and August 14
• HOME Music Day, July 10
• HOME Dance Day, July 25
• HOME Fashion Day, August 7
• HOME Craft Market, August 21
• HOME Craft Market, September 18
About HOME
The HOME Refugee Steering Committee is building a space of leading, coming together, and celebrating refugees. In 2019, we were able to realize our vision for HOME 2019 as a community-directed outdoor festival on World Refugee Day. Over 1,000 refugee community members and members of the public filled Lynden’s grounds. In 2020, we launched the HOME virtual platform to archive our past work and to house our new, year-round HOME programming. In 2021, we are offering HOME as a series of dispersed events spanning the summer. HOME 2021 is sponsored in part by Hanan Refugee Relief and Engauge Workforce Solutions.
About the Artists
Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Congo Gospel Music Band (Congolese) is led and organized by drummer and frontliner Bodack Mondembe. Based at their local church, Congo Gospel Music Band also performs at street and neighborhood events, churches and weddings, and community-led events. They have performed at Beet Street, the annual Fall Harvest Festival by Cactus Club, Friends of Zion worship concert at Benediction Lutheran Church, as well as at HOME World Refugee Day celebrations at the Lynden Sculpture Garden. Their album and music video is forthcoming, and their sound, described as rhythmical, upbeat and infectious, is in high demand.
Karen Milwaukee Music Band (Burmese), organized by Saw Klo Futurestar, performs popular songs in the Karen and Burmese community ranging from spiritual to pop music. A supporter of community directed events, the Karen Milwaukee Music Band joins the HOME celebrations in 2021 in a karaoke-style performance–popular at intimate gatherings but ideal for a community celebration of this size.
Golden Melody Music Band U.S.A. (Burmese) is led by Burmese Muslim Mohammad Hasan alongside volunteer singers, and is managed by Burmese grassroots community worker Moe Aung. Hasan captures his audience with a nostalgic style and persona, both poised and enigmatic, and with sounds of yesteryear. He plays international music, oldies, and classic rock songs in Myanmar, English and Hindi (Bollywood). Hasan and his rotating band members perform at farmer’s markets, community fundraisers, and practically anywhere that they are called for. At the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Golden Melody has performed at HOME celebrations since 2019. In 2021, inspired by community activism in his homeland and locally, Hasan has expanded his line-up to include new band members and new music representing the diverse ethnic groups of Myanmar. Hasan acts as advisor and music arranger to this new band, Spring Star Music Band. It includes musicians from the Karen, Kachin, Chin, and Burmese community.
Led by a mother-daughter duo, Mother’s Love (Burmese) is known in the Myanmar community in Milwaukee for their Burmese Traditional Umbrella Dance. Performing at various community events, including weddings, company staff gatherings, and summer picnics, Mother’s Love combines folk music and traditional dance steps found regionally in Thailand and the Southeast Asian region.
Milwaukee’s own Brazilian Samba school since 2010 and part of the International Grooversity drumming network spearheaded by Marcus Santos (Grooversity.com), Samba Da Vida MKE (Afro-Brazilian percussion) brings together people of all ages to celebrate the Afro-Brazilian and Carnaval traditions of Salvador da Bahia, Rio, and São Paulo. Directed by Julio Pabón and Bony Plog-Benavides, SDV MKE is featured in parades and performances throughout greater Milwaukee and focuses on maintaining and promoting the rich musical culture of Brazil. https://www.facebook.com/Samba
About the Lynden Sculpture Garden
The Lynden Sculpture Garden offers a unique experience of art in nature through its collection of more than 50 monumental sculptures sited across 40 acres of park, pond, and woodland. The sculpture garden is open to art and nature lovers of all ages daily, 10 am-5 pm (closed Thursdays). Admission is free. Annual memberships are available. More information: http://lyndensculpturegarden.o
NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.
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