Coast to Coast Mardi Gras!

Favela Brass has great friends.

From the 21st to the 30th of July, the following 9 musicians will be walking 120 miles from the West coast to the East coast of the UK, playing gigs at each of the 9 towns they will stop in along the way, all in order to raise money for Favela Brass:

Mark Ellis (saxophone)
Stuart Garside (trombone)
Tom Ashe (trumpet)
Paul Grady (trumpet)
Neil Morley (trumpet)
Mark Kerrigan (drums)
Gareth Smith (trumpet)
Rowena Smith (trombone)
James Stretton (tuba)

During the walk we will be busking, selling T-shirts and inviting cash donations from the public at shows. However we also want to use the event as a way to stimulate our existing network of friends and family, those who already recognise the value and potential of our program, to support us by donating monthly.

We have calculated that the basic running costs of the school at its present capacity of 30 children five days a week are around £300 per month, which means that with a running donation of £10 monthly you can provide a child with long-term, potentially life-changing, access to regular high-quality instrumental music tuition (though we are, of course, very grateful for all levels of donations, monthly or one-off.)

To make a contribution please use the “donate” button below, checking the “make this donation recurring” box if you want to become a monthly donor. All monthly donors (including our existing donors) who donate £5 or more per month and those who make an individual donation of £15 or more will receive a high quality Favela Brass T-Shirt (once donations are confirmed we will send an e-mail to confirm the size/colour/postal address – we ship worldwide too).


In addition to helping the Favela Brass project financially, the walk is also shaping up to be pretty darn cool musically. Favela Brass seeks to mix the New Orleans brass band tradition with the samba school tradition of Rio de Janeiro and that is going to be reflected in the music on the walk – the band will be playing New Orleans “Second Line” brass band music along with some serious samba drumming grooves as well!

Our itinerary:

Bindu Mathur

Bindu Mathur was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada and worked for 10 years in London as a TV producer/director, making science and history documentaries for the BBC, Discovery and Channel 4. She also made videos for international NGOs and has filmed in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America and South America. Resident in Rio de Janeiro since 2007 she is the owner of the award-winning Casa Beleza B&B in Santa Teresa, where she lives with her husband and two children. She is a long-time collaborator with Favela Brass including making films for the project. Her children also studied at the project.


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