Thousands of Brazilians Take Part in Israeli Social Music Initiative by Shiryn Ghermezian
Thousands of Brazilians gathered on Sunday at Sao Paulo’s Estaiada Bridge to take part in a popular Israeli social musical initiative held for the first time in Latin America.
The Koolulam project centers around mass singing events in which large groups of non-professionals come together “from all walks of life to do one thing: stop everything for a few hours and just sing,” according to its Facebook page.
The group in Brazil, comprised of Jews and non-Jews, sang “Tempos Modernos,” or “Modern Times,” a famous Brazilian song from the 1980s composed and sung by Lulu Santos, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.
The show includes a rehearsal of one song led by a conductor and performed by the audience members, who are given music sheets with the lyrics and divided into different voices. The final performance is filmed, edited and posted online.
Conductor Ben Yaffet said about the experience, “Participants go through a creative process surrounded by a sense of unity and belonging rarely achieved in our daily lives.”
Producer Jussara Gontow added, “Koolulam’s main goal is to bring together strangers who have no singing experience and provoke an innovative, creative, sensory and unforgettable musical moment. Children, youth, adults and the elderly become artists.”
Koolulam, established in 2017, has been performed in Israel, the United States, Canada and South Africa.
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