Playing For The Planet: World Music Against Climate Change — December 9, 2017, Boston

Mark your calendars for one of the year’s most exciting musical events!

On Saturday, December 9, the sixteenth “Playing For The Planet” benefit concert showcases master musicians from three different musical traditions, in a benefit for the environmental advocacy group 350MA.org.

Come and hear Rob Flax‘ genre-bending solo performance, the enthralling and hypnotic music of the Hurdy-Gurdy Band, and the exquisite ragas of master sitarist Jawwad Noor.

The music begins at 7:00 pm, at The Community Church Of Boston, 565 Boylston Street (Copley Square), Boston.

Admission is $20; $15 students & seniors.

Tickets are available online through Eventbrite.

For further information, please call 781-396-0734.

“Playing For The Planet: World Music Against Climate Change” is the sixteenth concert in an ongoing series of cross-cultural events produced by Boston-area musician and environmental activist Warren Senders. These concerts were conceived as a way for creative musicians to contribute to the urgent struggle against global warming. Their beneficiary, 350MA.org, is focused on building global consensus on reduction of atmospheric CO2 levels — action which climatologists agree is necessary to avoid catastrophic outcomes.

About The Artists

Jawwad Noor — Sitar

Harsha Hampapura — Tabla

Jawwad Noor was initiated into sitar by Ustad Alam Khan of Lahore.

He went on to become a disciple of the world’s leading sitarist, Ustad Shahid Parvez Khan, under whose exacting standards he extensively studies the melodic and rhythmic foundations of the music and trains to play the sitar in the vocal idiom.

Jawwad has been bringing his impassioned performances to audiences regularly and widely for many years. He is a senior instructor of the Shahid Parvez Khan Academy, and teaches at the LearnQuest Academy of Music.   On December 10, he will be accompanied on tabla by Harsha Hampapura, who first studied with Shri Ram Hegde Keremane, and has been learning the Punjab style from Shri Anup Joshi for the past 6 years.

Rob Flax

Multi-instrumentalist Rob Flax describes his music in a concise way: “I play things with strings, I hit stuff, and I sing.”  Behind this simple tag line lies a rich depth of genre-bending, from classical and jazz violin to bluegrass fiddle, to blues and rock influences, and beyond. In his “One Man Band” shows, Rob uses a looper pedal and other effects to transform his violin into an entire symphony of sounds.

“Rob’s unique blend of ancient and modern brings the violin into the 21st century with a dazzling array of digital technology seamlessly mated to the traditional world of wood, gut, and bone.” —Stuart Rosenberg, WMFT

The Hurdy-Gurdy Band

The Hurdy-Gurdy is a mechanical violin played all over Europe since the Middle Ages. It combines drones, melody and percussive rhythms to cast a powerful spell on listeners.

The Hurdy-Gurdy Band was formed in 1979 by Donald Heller and Anicét Mikolai.  Since then, they have performed throughout Europe, Canada and the United States.

Inspired by the traditions of the itinerant (and sometimes pitifully poor) Hurdy-Gurdy players heard in the streets of 18th Century Paris and London, the Hurdy-Gurdy Band breathes new life into an all but lost art.

On December 9 they will be joined by their son Julien Heller, on violin.

ABOUT 350.org and 350MA.org

Co-founded by environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, 350.org is the hub of a worldwide network of over two hundred environmental organizations, all with a common target: persuading the world’s countries to unite in an effort to reduce global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million or less. Climatologist Dr. James Hansen says, “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 400 ppm to at most 350 ppm.” (Dr. Hansen headed the NASA Institute for Space Studies in New York City, and is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue.) Activists involved in the 350 movement include Rajendra Pachauri (Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Vandana Shiva (world-renowned environmental leader and thinker), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and a global activist on issues pertaining to democracy, freedom and human rights), Van Jones, Bianca Jagger, Barbara Kingsolver and many more.

350MA.org is the Massachusetts Chapter of this worldwide advocacy group, and the hub for the Better Future Project.

The Community Church of Boston is a free community united for the study and practice of universal religion, seeking to apply ethical ideals to individual life and the democratic and cooperative principle to all forms of social and economic life. We invite you to read on to discover more about us, join us one Sunday for a thought-provoking and joyful time, or contact the church to find out more about our community: info@communitychurchofboston.org