Description
Despite the pandemic’s many hardships, this strange period of time has also created opportunities for artists to make new work and collaborate in unprecedented ways. With live performances canceled for the foreseeable future, Latin GRAMMY Award-Winning musician, author, activist, and educator, Ben Gundersheimer (aka Mister G) began reaching out to friends and colleagues around the globe to share songs and ideas that had been percolating in isolation.
“Children of the World”, the debut album from Mister G and the Global Citizen Ensemble, unites musicians across five continents and fourteen countries (including Iran, Liberia, Senegal, Vietnam, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, France, Jamaica and the USA). Each of the twelve tracks developed organically through video calls and emails exchanged while sheltering in place. Ben would share a new song and an artist would hear something intriguing and then embroider it with his or her unique cultural perspective. That might be a rhythm, as on “Talking Drum Alarm Clock” which features West African drum master, Massamba Diop (Baaba Maal, Black Panther Soundtrack) or a traditional instrument such as the Đàn Tranh, played by Tri Nguyen from Vietnam on “The Bamboo Bridge”.
