EMBASSY CULTURAL HOUSE
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ECH family & community mourn the loss of Tyson Haller

3/23/2021

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The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) family and community are grieving the loss of Tyson Haller who passed away recently in Ottawa. He was a strong supporter and advocate of the ECH both during its original program at the Embassy Hotel between 1983 - 1990 and its present online format.

Tyson's parents Helen and Egon owned the Embassy Hotel from the late 1970s until it was sold in 2001. He was a huge part of the running of the hotel and organized the music program in the hotel bars. Tyson went on to study film at Ryerson University in Toronto. Our heart goes out to his family and all his friends in London, Toronto and Ottawa and around the world who are mourning his untimely death.
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Please visit Tyson's page to see some of his film work and photos.
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The Embassy Hotel
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I grew up here
Always chasing what's possible 
Ya I grew up here
With the old men
The ladies and escorts
The 1st Peoples
The bands
Social Distortion, DOA, No Means No, Rancid, SNFU, Face To Face
The Art
The Art exhibits 
The Embassy Cultural House
Remember
Polish your Eyes
Greg Curnoe, Tom Benner, Ron Benner, Eric Stach
They taught me to  hum a song
Till the feeling is gone
It burnt down
Now I look at the stars at night
Oh the modern world
You made my eyes red and raw
Lived through it 
To get to this moment
So I close my eyes
Click my heels 3 times
Embassy 
Home
You had to go 
I know I know
But if you look around
You just might feel the ghost
Floating around
Reminding us
That the winds are blowing 
And we can always choose what is possible than what we see...
 
Tyson Haller, August 2020

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South African newspaper covers ECH event to celebrate Lorraine Klaasen's FCLMA World Music Award

3/13/2021

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The South African newspaper, Sowetan Live, published an article on March 12 on JUNO Award-winner Lorrain Klaasen as part of its International Women's Day coverage. Lorraine, the daughter of the legendary South African performer Thandi Klaasen, remembered all the powerful women who contributed to making her the person she is today.  The article also reported on the sold-out Embassy Cultural House online event held on February 13, 2021  to celebrate Lorraine's 2020 Forest City London Music Award (FCLMA) in the category of World Music.  ECH Co-Founder, Jamelie Hassan, is quoted in the article as describing Lorraine as a strong advocate and powerful voice for women across the globe.  Lorraine recently joined the Advisory Circle of the  ECH to help promote education and awareness of African music, culture and heritage. Read the article online here.
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South African women singers from the 1950s.
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Lorraine with Lena Bulisa
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Lorraine with June Garber, a well known white South African Jazz singer based in Toronto.
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Last concert with Lorraine's mother Thandi Klaasen, paying tribute to her in South Africa 2016.
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Go; Rise and Strike... IWD Exhibit reviewed by novelist Marwan Hassan

3/10/2021

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​Congratulations on the Embassy Cultural House’s excellent show, which Jade Williamson coordinated and organized with Ruth Skinner and Charlotte Egan and brought together for International Women’s Day.

It is a modulated exhibition, reflecting a fine spectrum of works of art by the many artists who contributed to it. The exhibit is at once accessible and public while being insightful and reflective, intellectual and social. 

Sometimes there is objective intimacy; other times there is subjective revelation.

The presentation allows each artist to represent herself, while the sequence of the show flows smoothly and comes together as a collective work. The virtual images’ scale and portions of each work of art are well developed and presented with accompanying commentary and/or description by the artists.

It is good to scroll through the entire collection of pieces to observe the differences and complimentary relations of each artist’s work to one another, to feel the impact of the historical pieces, by many of the women artists such as Shelley Niro, Bernice Vincent, Freda Guttman, and Mireya Folch-Serra, who have made a significant contribution, relative to the new works by numerous younger artists, Niloufar Salimi, Julie René de Cotret and Soheila Esfahani. 

There’s texture to the works ranging from startling with elements of recognition and reversal in perception over to intimacy with a slow emergence of a revelation. 
 
Marwan Hassan, a novelist of Arab descent, was born in London, Ontario in 1950. He is a graduate of the University of Windsor. Marwan now lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
Click here to visit the International Women's Day Exhibit

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LIVE!  Go: Rise and Strike... International Women's Day Exhibit

3/7/2021

1 Comment

 
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Diana Tamblyn, Go; Rise and Strike, Tekahionwake, 2020
 The Embassy Cultural House's International Women’s Day Exhibition Go; Rise and Strike is NOW LIVE.  Coordinated by Jade Williamson with the assistance of Charlotte Egan and Ruth Skinner, the exhibit includes over twenty artists.  The exhibit includes artists who showed in the original International Women's Day exhibitions presented by the ECH in 1984 and 1985, as well as many more artists who are part of the ECH community today. 

They include: 
Jessie Amery, Amanda Boulos, Susan Day, Julie Rene De Cotret, Charlotte Egan, Soheila Esfahani, kerry ferris (1949 -2016), Mireya Folch Serra, Fatima Garzan, Anahi Gonzalez, Freda Guttman, Jamelie Hassan, Samar Hejazi, Fern Helfand, Sharmistha Kar, Suzy Lake, Catherine Morrisey, Shelley Niro, Thelma Rosner, Niloufar Salimi, Sandra Semchuk, Mackenzie Smith, Jean Spence, Diana Tamblyn, Zainub Verjee, Bernice Vincent (1934 - 2016), Jade Williamson, Michelle Wilson, and Winsom Winsom
 
Online Event: Sunday, March 14, 2021, at 1:30 pm, EST

Click here to register. 
Limited Capacity - Only 100 tickets available.

The beauty of this show is not only the art but the messages the artists have to share.  The value of this exhibition is that it lives on beyond International Women's Day, March 8, 2021. One day is not enough to celebrate the achievements of women and to recognize their challenges. Therefore, the infinite life in its virtual existence - makes this exhibition forever our toast and tribute to women everywhere

Jade Williamson, Exhibition Coordinator
March 7, 2021
Click here to visit the International Women's Day exhibit

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Award winning musician Lorraine Klaasen joins ECH Advisory Circle

3/6/2021

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Lorraine Klaasen joins ECH Advisory Circle
The Embassy Cultural House (ECH) is pleased to announce that Lorraine Klaasen is joining our Advisory Circle. Lorraine is an internationally renown performer, a JUNO award-winner, and received in 2020 the Forest City London Music Award  (FCLMA) in the category of World Music. Originally from South Africa and formerly living in Montreal, Lorraine now lives in London, Ontario.

Lorraine has dedicated her career to uniting people of all races through music and art. Since immigrating to Canada about four decades ago, Lorraine has recorded and performed around the world. She has given memorable performances at the Montreal Jazz Festival and Carnegie Hall. Her 2013 ‘Tribute to Miriam Makeba’ CD (Justin Time Records) earned her a JUNO Award. She participated in a documentary called the ‘Legends of Madiba’ that pays tribute to prominent South African female singers.

On February 13, 2021, the ECH hosted an online celebration in recognition of Lorraine's FCLMA World Music Award to a sold out crowd, and we are very excited to have Lorraine join our team bringing her energy and ideas to our ECH community.
 
Other members of the ECH Advisory Circle include: Samer Abdelnour, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho,  Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner and Lucas Stenning. 

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EDITORIAL TEAM

ONLINE FOUNDER
Tariq Hassan Gordon

COFOUNDERS & CURATORIAL ADVISORS 
 
Jamelie Hassan 
& Ron Benner

ADVISORY CIRCLE
Samer Abdelnour, Marnie Fleming, Wyn Geleynse, Fern Helfand, S F Ho, Lorraine Klaasen, Judith Rodger, Ruth Skinner, Mary Lou and Dan Smoke,  and Lucas Stenning 

COORDINATING EDITORS
Tariq Hassan Gordon & 
Olivia Mossuto

WEB DESIGN & SOCIAL MEDIA 
Tariq Hassan Gordon, Ira Kazi, Olivia Mossuto, Niloufar Salimi,  JoAnna Weil 

VIRTUAL TOUR
Andreas Buchwaldt

PRINT PUBLICATIONS
Blessy Augustine, Shelley Kopp, 
Olivia Mossuto

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Andreas Buchwaldt, Blessy Augustine, Anahí González, Ira Kazi, ​Shelley Kopp, Ashar Mobeen, Niloufar Salimi,  Jenna Rose Sands, JoAnna Weil & Michelle Wilson. 

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OUR STORY
Artists Jamelie Hassan and Ron Benner and jazz musician Eric Stach founded the Embassy Cultural House (1983-1990) located in the restaurant portion of the Embassy Hotel at 732 Dundas Street in East London. Other former members of the board were: Debrann Eastabrook, Henry Eastabrook, Sharron Forrest, Wyn Geleynse, Janice Gurney, Jean Hay (1929 - 2008), Doug Mitchell, Kim Moodie, Gerard Pas, Peter Rist, Wanda Sawicki, Jean Spence and Jennie White. In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Embassy Cultural House was re-envisioned as a virtual artist-run space and website. 

This project is supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the London Arts Council through the City of London's Community Arts Investment Program.
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Thank you to our partners

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E M B A S S Y  C U L T U R A L  H O U S E . C A

​London, Ontario is on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Lenape, Attawandaron and Huron-Wendat peoples, at the forks of Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River), an area subject to the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and other treaties.

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