The Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs has last Thursday 15th June 2023, disclosed to the media that they have sent three young Sierra Leonean musicians to the Global Musician Workshop in United States of America. This was disclosed at a press conference held at the ministry’s conference hall in Freetown.
The Three Sierra Leonean musicians that were selected to attend the workshop in US are Solomon Fatoma aka (Solo’s Beat), Harold Nat-Johnson aka Fretwalker and Rosaline Johnson aka Iyabode.
They will live in August 2023, for a weeklong artists’ exchange with talented musicians from all over the world according to Rosaline Johnson aka Iyabode.
She furthered that they were chosen for the programme because their musical leadership in pioneering a new wave of Afrocentric jazz fusion in Sierra Leone is something they have never incorporated in their musical programming at the Global Musician Workshop.
She also said, they selected them and their organization Telem Uncommon Sounds from among so many applicants, because they saw world class talent that would add something very new and rich to their programming.
She disclosed that last year (2022), only 5% of their participants were of African origin and zero from Sierra Leone.
With all this traveling, Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs is supporting them.
And she continues that Telem Uncommon Sounds will also be featured in public community engagement performance in Boston, New York and the Washington DC area.
She thanked Rockdale Foundation, for their generous support as they has been supporting education efforts of local partners in Sierra Leone since 2011.
She ends up saying, they will do their best to sell Sierra Leone Music positively in the United States.
