The country has in the past years been joining the rest of the world to celebrate the World Music Day on June 21 every year through the now closed French Cultural Centre in Blantyre.<\/p>\n
But since the closure of the once mighty entertainment Mecca now Blantyre Cultural Centre in 2011, the country has never celebrated the day.<\/p>\n
With French Cultural Centre, the day used to be decorated with among others free shows where people had an opportunity of watching some of their favourite musicians.<\/p>\n
This was also a platform where the organisers would come out and use it to speak highly about the importance of music.<\/p>\n
The day passed silently yesterday without any activities in the country but Musicians Union of Malawi (Mum) President Reverend Chimwemwe Mhango said they have activities on the ground this year.<\/p>\n
He said they could not hold activities yesterday because it was a working day and so they decided to shift their celebrations to Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know in the past years we have not been doing anything as Mum but this year we are celebrating the World Music Day. Actually we are dedicating the day to our colleagues albinos,\u201d said Mhango.<\/p>\n
As we went to press yesterday, Mhango said the Mum chapters in Mzuzu, Lilongwe and Blantyre were planning their activities.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor now I cannot say much because members are still planning the activities but I can confirm that we are celebrating the day this year. We admit that the past years we have not been active on the day but this is our day and we need to celebrate it,\u201d said Mhango.<\/p>\n
He said with the country engulfed with news of albino killings, they thought it wise to dedicate the day to people with albinism.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral artists have come out and taken a leading role in the fight against the killing of albinos. But we thought as a music body we also needed to do something and so we thought of using the World Music Day platform,\u201d said Mhango.<\/p>\n
He said they will have road shows where musicians will perform and that they will also carry placards carrying different messages on the killings of people with albinism as well as information on the creative industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs musicians but also the creative industry as a whole we have been sidelined for a long time so we will also use the platform to voice out our concerns. We have so many challenges and we feel we can use this stage to speak out,\u201d said the Mum leader.<\/p>\n
He said they also wanted to hold a workshop on the day but they would not as they had wanted to hold it at Kamuzu Institute for Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are venues which as a creative industry the government could have been considering us but in most cases we are told to write letters which is a long process. We will continue to engage the government, the corporate world and various stakeholders for support,\u201d said Mhango.<\/p>\n
He said it was high time that the creative industry got the much needed support because it has what it takes to help develop the country.<\/p>\n
Despite Mum organising the event, several other musicians said yesterday through the social media that they were not aware of the day.<\/p>\n
French Honorary Consul Luc Deschamps, who through Jacaranda and French Embassy in Malawi has spearheaded the opening of the Jacaranda Cultural Centre and Maison de la France <\/em>in Blantyre, said the World Music Day is very important but they had not organised any activities.<\/p>\n According to available information the F\u00eate de la Musique, <\/em>also known as Make Music Day or World Music Day, is an annual music celebration on June 21.<\/p>\n The concept of an all-day musical celebration on the days of the solstice was originated by the French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang. The festival later became celebrated in 120 countries around the world.<\/p>\n The F\u00eate de la Musique\u2019s <\/em>purpose is to promote music in two ways where among others amateur and professional musicians are encouraged to perform in the streets, under the slogan \u201cFaites de la musique\u201d <\/em>(\u201cmake music\u201d, a homophone of F\u00eate de la Musique).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The country has in the past years been joining the rest of the world to celebrate the World Music Day on June 21 every year through the now closed French Cultural Centre in Blantyre. But since the closure of the once mighty entertainment Mecca now Blantyre Cultural Centre in 2011, the country has never celebrated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26624,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26619\/revisions\/26624"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}