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.

​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.

 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

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.