Activist Songbook honors organizers and organizing through collective music-making. Material emerges from interviews with individual organizers to engage communities. Activist Songbook Virtual Choirs, made up of musicians and non-musicians, record songs from the songbook repertoire and perform together from the safety of their own homes. With a single Zoom rehearsal under their belts, performers use guide tracks to record their parts separately, singing along and improvising.
There Will Be Joy is inspired by the words and actions of PJ and Roy Hirabayashi, pioneers of North American taiko and founders of San José Taiko. The song pays tribute to the Asian American activists who inspired PJ and Roy, and celebrates the intersection of movement, liberation and joy that infuses their organizing and their music.
To support One Village Healing, a local New Haven organization at the intersection of arts, healing and justice, check out: https://www.onevillagehealing.org/
To learn more about San José Taiko where PJ and Roy inspire joyful community building through taiko, check out: https://taiko.org/
