World Ark Magazine - November/December 2008 - (Page 8)

Asked & Answered Building Bridges strumming peace your new album, ¡Nueva York!, features music from Central and South America and is sung entirely in Spanish. Is this just a fun way to learn about multiculturalism, or is there a deeper message? About three years ago, I started noticing that everywhere we were going, there were Latinos, mostly Mexican people. I grew up in New Hampshire, which is really not a bilingual part of the country, and I realized I’ve been missing out on a lot of the fun by not being able to speak Spanish. I wanted to learn the language just to understand more about my neighbors, really. Also, I’m a curious musician and I want to know more about all kinds of music. I kept meeting Latino musicians, but without the language I couldn’t get too far into the culture. Plus, the immigration debate is getting uglier and uglier—and more mean-spirited. I feel like all artists have a social responsibility to look at the world around us and reflect on it in some way. We live in a society of very joyful possibilities, but so many people who live here feel unwelcome, unwanted and uncared for. With this record, really all of these things were on my mind. For kids growing up in parts of the country where their only experience with different cultures is what they hear on the radio or television, they might think the world is a fearful place. Yet here I am in New York, learning music from my friends from Puerto Rico, Colombia and other places around the world. It’s a celebratory experience of what this century can be, and we wanted to make a record about that. There’s certainly a political piece to it all for me, but fun is the horse that we ride into town on, so it’s got to be fun. I’m sometimes tempted to get up on the soapbox, but my audience has no patience for that. Where did the songs on the album come from? Why did you choose them? I started taking Spanish lessons in Manhattan, and the guy who started the school 30 years ago is a musician from Argentina who has an incredible overview of all kinds of songs from Latin America. I told him what kind of album I was thinking about and he started feeding me CDs that he would make of compilations of music from all over Latin America. I would listen to the CDs as I traveled around, and when I got back we would talk about what resonated. I went through hundreds and hundreds of songs with him. It kind of evolved that way. Has the reaction to this album been different in any way from reaction to your earlier albums? Kids are embracing it. We’ve always had at least one Spanish song on all of our family CDs from the second www.heifer.org toward Grammy-winning singer and guitar player Dan Zanes uses music to foster understanding across cultures. The popular children’s musician volunteers his time and talents as a spokesperson for Heifer International. Here, he talks about how songs build friendships across physical and cultural borders. Interviewed by Austin Gelder, World Ark Associate Editor ABOVE: Pictured here in Brooklyn, N.Y., with one of his co-stars, Zanes shot a public service announcement for Heifer International in April 2008. TOP RIGHT: Zanes bridges the gap between cultures by showcasing something we all have in common—music. Photos: Nikka Beardslee 8 November/December 2008 | WORLD ARK http://www.heifer.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Ark Magazine - November/December 2008

World Ark Magazine - November/December 2008 Contents Letters For the Record The Good Life Asked and Answered Finding Peace in Africa Sierra Leone on the Mend The Roma: A People Apart Mixed Media Heifer Bulletin Heifer Spirit Calendar First Person

World Ark Magazine - November/December 2008

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