Recently one of Goa’s more interesting musicians flew off to countries in Africa. To play with musicians, to interact with the people of that place and to expose them to the music of Goa. Varun Carvalho has come up with the initiative ‘Play to Unite’ which was started in Goa with the idea of fostering ties and building bridges between communities through the medium of music. The mission of ‘Play to Unite’ is to connect communities through musical dialogues creating opportunities for people to better understand each other’s cultures. Varun and his band travel to different places and connect with local musicians from that place and create, collaborate and perform in that place, thereby getting communities together.
Varun flew out of Goa on August 3 for Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Varun says, “We were honoured by the people of Ethiopia as they invited us to perform at the world renowned Fendika Cultural Centre to play with the ambassadors of Ethiopian music, Ethiocolor. One of our friends from Ethiopia connected us with them. It was a great experience. We will be collaborating with them in the future and that could mean us going to that country or they coming over.” This visit has resulted in new relationships being created. Varun stayed at Addis Ababa at the Presidential Hotel in the heart of Addis Ababa and was very accessible to everything around. It was quite central so it was easier for the people and musicians to connect. After an eventful stay, they left for Zimbabwe on August 6.
Varun says, “We did a ‘Play to Unite’ concert in Bulawayo, where we collaborated with Zimbabwean artists at the iconic Zimbabwe Academy of Music. It was a great experience collaborating and working with different artists from Zimbabwe and fusing our sounds together in one Riddim. We intend to start a ‘Play to Unite’ community centre in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe where kids can have access to musical instruments and stay connected with the music people instead of getting into drugs and bad vices.”
They are working closely with Rotarians and the musician community in Bulawayo to make it happen. Varun says, “Music does unite and music unites the people of Bulawayo and we had one massive concert where all the musicians and people came together in one vibration and one mission. It was beautiful to see how the Goa sounds and the Zimbabwean sounds seamlessly met, it was a celebration of people and a celebration of music.” He went on to say, “We met with a lot of people from Zimbabwe. In fact, the ambassador, Vijay Khanduja has asked us if we could come back to Zimbabwe and do a ‘Play to Unite’ in Harare. We plan to take the movement across countries and unite the people through music. Goa has always been about love and peace and we want to take this message across the world through Goan music and fuse our music with the music of the world and unite the people in a higher vibration. We believe that music will unite the world and we feel blessed to take our music from Goa to the rest of the world.”
Varun says that plans were afoot to go back to Africa but their immediate plans involved travelling to America next month. The Consul General has plans to make him perform at the United Nations that of course depends on various factors falling into place. They will be based in New York and will also be conducting a workshop for students at the State University for the students there.
When asked how the African adventure started, Varun laughs and says, “There is no explanation. We were invited to perform at a beauty pageant in Zimbabwe. It took off from there. Our idea of Play to Unite was already in place and we decided to launch it in Africa. We informed the organisers that we wanted to play with local musicians and they helped. Those musicians helped us connect with more musicians. Our genre of music, Reggae Goa is a very wide genre having been absorbed from the land and also from whatever passed through our land. And that’s why it’s so easy for us to fuse our genre with any genre in the world.”
Varun says he wanted to make it a worldwide movement. He says connections were being made with musicians across the world. One can hope Varun is successful in this. The world needs initiatives like this as hate and narrow minded ideologies seem to be taking hold of large sections of society.