AfriClassical: Sinfo-Nia's "One Love" Jamaica Tour 2 scheduled to take place July 3-14, 2018

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Sinfo-Nia's "One Love" Jamaica Tour 2 scheduled to take place July 3-14, 2018

David E. Robinson III writes:

Sinfo-Nia's "One Love" Jamaica Performance Tour 2 for eleven days is scheduled to take place July 3-14, 2018. The Still Waters Youth Sinfo-Nia Orchestra of Metropolitan Atlanta will collaborate with the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica (NYOJ) under the direction of Darren Young and Karen Prentice like last year. This year the Immaculate Conception High School Orchestra in Kingston under the direction of Steven Woodham will join us as well. Everyone had an exciting rehearsing, performing, and fellowshipping together. This was truly a wonderful international network experience.

There is still room for high school and college musicians (and adults - professional and amateur) to go on this trip. It is open to musicians of any race, religion, etc. If you are interested or have students, colleagues, that may be interested, they may pass this information along to them. We are still receiving musicians as we speak. Please call Alycia Robinson at (404) 428-3804.

Summary of the 2017 Performance Tour

We arrived in Jamaica late Sunday evening, July 2nd and checked into the 138 Student Living residences (dormitories) on the campus of the University of West Indies - Mona. The next day, the students from the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica (NYOJ) came and rehearsed with us in this collaboration. We held rehearsals those three days. Then we performed on the campus at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for Creative Arts Thursday, July 6th, the Devon House Park on Friday, July 7th, and Boulevard Baptist Church for their Sunday service on July 9th.

We had some more fun activities in between. We went to Holywell National Park. The ride was interesting as it was a two-lane road going up high in the mountains with many twists, turns, and beautiful scenery along the way. We went swimming at Fort Clarence Beach. We visited the Bob Marley Museum. We ate at several nice restaurants. At the Devon House, we got some delicious ice cream. The "I Scream" shop there is ranked among the top ten in the world. We had to make a second trip there just for that. After our three performances, we went onto Ocho Rios and had fun climbing Dunn's River Falls. Then we spent the finals days at El Greco Resort in Montego Bay. We went swimming at their beach and pool. There were also other ventures groups of students and parent went to such as the Jamaica Safari Park, a rafting trip, and a boat trip,

We have announced this summer’s performance tour to Jamaica. The dates are July 3-14, 2018. The NYOJ students were so excited about the great time they had with us that they are telling everyone in Jamaica including the NYOJ students that missed out last year. We plan on performing with them again this summer.

Some of the NYOJ students are looking to attend colleges in the U.S. to further their music studies. So far we have direct contact to the following schools. We would love to add more colleges to this list:

- Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia (for young men); David Robinson graduated from there

- Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia (for young women)

- Clark-Atlanta University, Atlanta, Georgia

- Agnes Scott College, Atlanta, Georgia (for young women); Briana graudated from there

- Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia

- Alabama A & M University, Normal, Alabama; one of Sinfo-Nia alums graduated from there and taught with Sinfo-Nia

- Allen University, Columbia, South Carolina; the music department chair, Dr. Alvoy Bryan, Jr. was a Sinfo-Nia student (he is asking for students as we speak)

Sinfo-Nia Youth Orchestra of Metropolitan Atlanta, GA USA is the ideal place for serious, young orchestral musicians. Students learn to play a variety of multicultural music. Jamaica was our third international trip we have taken with the first to being to West Africa. One does not have to plan to major or minor in music in college to be a part of Sinfo-Nia. We are looking for students that are considering college music study. We want to prepare them accordingly whereas they will get scholarship offers. We are in touch with several colleges and universities with orchestra programs.

Sinfo-Nia has begun its "Go Fund Me" Campaign to raise funds for this trip. We are raising funds to offset the costs of some of our land trips (on the bus from where we are staying to the performance venues; and airport transportation). We are also raising funds to help offset the cost of the meals. We would appreciate your donations.

www.gofundme.com/onelovesinfonia

Last, but not least, if you have a community youth orchestra that would like to travel in the future especially to the Caribbean and Africa, please take note how Sinfo-Nia does it. Please know that there are serious young orchestral musicians on these islands and in the Motherland. I personally would like to start a youth orchestra program in Ghana, West Africa in a few years. If you would like to form a community youth orchestra, please let me know and I can guide you through the steps on how to do it. It will require some time and investment. It certainly is not a "cash cow" where you would get paid immediately, but you would be making a valuable contribution to the orchestral music field.

Sincerely,

David E. Robinson III

Founder & Artistic Director

Still Waters Youth Sinfo-Nia

Please check out our website at www.sinfo-nia.com

Included are some awesome music videos

Please check out our Facebook page - "SinfoNia Orch"

and you will see pictures and videos of our Jamaica Tour

Also on Facebook, please check out our other page where you will see some music videos at “Sinfo-Nia” (Musician/Band).

Here are some of our videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snD394Kjv4 with up-and-coming singer, Briyana Guadalupe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oukawYYYI7I with famed singers, actresses Chloe & Halle Bailey