Celebrating cultural and musical diversity

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    • 3 October 2007

    Close your Eyes - Lullabies from around the world - is a CD featuring 19 lullabies and was a major project for ESOL Home Tutors (Wellington).

    Singer

    From one success to another 
    Following the success of Lift the Lid of the Cumin Jar: the book that explored the lives and stories of nine new immigrants and refugees from the perspective of the kitchen, Close your Eyes peeks into the nursery and finds, in the lullabies that centre and soothe, another dimension for us to learn from and delight in.

    Singing around the world 
    Close your Eyes features Wellington singers, but the CD aims to promote and celebrate the cultural diversity ESOL Home Tutors experiences every day in their centres around New Zealand. Most of the singers came to New Zealand as migrants or refugees; some are first generation New Zealanders who have grown up with two cultures. There are lullabies from Asia, Africa, North and South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe as well as from these shores.

    A musical progression 
    In keeping with the spirit of ESOL Home Tutors' service, and with the emphasis on service, the project came to fruition as a result of much good will and gifts of time, skill, money and enthusiasm. The project team consisted of professionals, a number of whom are home tutors or are associated with the service. They volunteered their time and skills or invoiced reluctantly at cost. Music Producer, Christine Argyle, and those at the studio Plan 9 worked closely to craft Close your Eyes.

    In the process, the singers were recorded in the studio unaccompanied. Plan 9 then researched the musical traditions of each culture to create and perform the musical backing. This gentle, discreet backing cushions each singer and subtly alludes to the culture from which each lullaby springs.

    Travelling back to childhood 
    The lullabies as we hear them on Close your Eyes capture the intimacy and tenderness of a close relationship and the private lives of a family and culture. Surprisingly fresh, at times haunting and yet consistently soothing, Close your Eyes is much more than a CD to leave in the nursery. It is very much for grown-ups too. For adults, lullabies are an invitation to close our eyes not only to sleep but to drift back to a time and place that is different from the present moment.

    'For many of the singers on this CD New Zealand is not the country of their birth or upbringing; it is a very foreign country,' explains Zlata Sosa, coordinator of ESOL Home Tutors in Wellington. 'In this context lullabies are a prompt to look back and reconnect with childhood, a different country and a different historical or emotional landscape. For New Zealand-born children of refugees and migrants, lullabies convey something of the heritage and culture their parents preserve and carry for them.'

    Musical stars 
    And the singers? As with Lift the Lid, the singers are ordinary people with extraordinary stories. For this CD, each sings from the heart lullabies they heard and learnt as children and that they continue to sing to the next generation. A taste of the rich lives from which the lullabies have risen: Jing Li was born in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. Her father, a talented musician, had been posted to Mongolia with the Chinese Army. There he had met Jing's mother. Like her father, Jing was very musical and at the age of 18 went to Beijing where she too joined the army to study and further her musical career. Her talent was recognised and her star soared; in 1997 Jing sang at the ceremonies which witnessed Hong Kong returning to the sovereignty of China. Jing Li married. Her husband Tony had studied in New Zealand and wanted to return so Jing Li's family emigrated.

    Julius was born in Hungary in 1914. He served as an officer in the Hungarian Army throughout World War II and was a political prisoner from 1945-1956. In 1957, after the Hungarian Uprising, Julius came to New Zealand where he married. When his daughter went to England to study, Julius would sing Hungarian lullabies down the phone to his little grand-daughter. Tsehiynesh, her husband and their children left Ethiopia and came to New Zealand as refugees, escaping the conflict and insecurity that was Ethiopia's at the time.

    Teresa came to New Zealand as a young bride. Her New Zealand-born Italian husband travelled to Massa Lubrense in Sorrento to find a wife. He was successful; Teresa emigrated and now lives in Wellington.

    Huda was brought up in a household where Arabic, Persian and Turkish were spoken and where the sacred texts of the Jewish, Christian, Moslem and Baha'i faiths were read. Huda's family are Baha'i, but to be Baha'i was illegal in Iraq. Huda managed to leave Iraq after suffering imprisonment and persecution along with her father and sisters. She later emigrated to New Zealand with her English husband. Just a taste. Lullabies are a precious cargo; Close your Eyes is a fitting vehicle. by Robyn Reid