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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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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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Lorraine Klaasen Receives the 2020 Forest City London World Music Award

11/7/2020

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Lorraine Klaasen
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The Embassy Cultural House community is thrilled for Lorraine Klaasen for winning the annual 2020 award for world music at the Forest City London Music Awards in September 2020. Now living in London, Lorraine is a 2013 Canadian JUNO Award winner. She has been performing and recording music in Canada for over 30 years and she’s also conducted music workshops in schools all over Canada, the Caribbean and the United States.  Her outreach program focuses on South African music, arts and culture with an emphasis on how immigrant cultures have enriched Canada. See Lorraine's virtual living room performance here.  Lorraine is a recent addition to the ECH community connecting with co-founder Jamelie Hassan via their children who work together in Global Affairs Canada. 

Lorraine said on her recent Forest City London Music Award : "It is wonderful to be receiving this award and thank you to FCLMA for their continued support of arts and culture. Music plays a vital role in the face of racism and oppression and I just want to make people happy with my gift of music."


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James Reaney: Hiding in Plain Sight with the King

10/27/2020

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King Ganam — Canada’s King of The Fiddle — c 1957 courtesy of CBC.ca
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Cover of the catalogue published in 2012 to accompany the survey exhibit "The Embassy Cultural House, 1983 to 1990" presented at Museum London, and curated by Robert (Bob) McKaskell.
​Hamoody Hassan, London, on King Ganam via CBC.ca:
“The King was a fantastic musician & great character who played in my dad's bars. He rolled into town in a Caddy with his beautiful wife. He was fun & funny. A source of great pride for a young Lebanese boy.”
 
The glories of the Embassy Cultural House (ECH) have been hiding in plain sight since (at least) Aug. 29, 1957.

The official dates in its story are 1983-1990, when the Embassy Cultural House flourished in what had been the Embassy Hotel restaurant area. Then, in 2012, a Museum London exhibition celebrated the ECH.

Now, in 2020, a virtual ECHcentric exhibition with a marvelously inclusive group of creators launches on Oct 30, at 2 PM EST with some of its artists and journalist Sarah Kendzior participating. That exhibition is called Hiding In Plain Sight.

But the Embassy Cultural House was already there, in its own way, on that summer day back in 1957.

On that date, King Ganam made an appearance before an overflow crowd of 14,000 fans at the then-new Covent Garden Market. He also visited his friends, and fellow Lebanese Canadians, the Hassan family, at their Erie Avenue home.

The Saskatchewan-born star known as "Canada’s King of The Fiddle" had come to London for a homecoming of co-stars Gordie Tapp and Tommy Hunter. All three were stars of CBC-TV’s Country Hoedown, a huge hit show with Ganam as its leader.

Back in 1957, Ameen Sied (King) Ganam found a calm space with the Hassans, owners of the Embassy Hotel. Future artist and ECH stalwart Jamelie Hassan was taking violin lessons and King played on her little fiddle, sounding the first notes of the Embassy Cultural House.

Ganam’s connection with the Embassy Cultural House was hiding in plain sight decades later when Museum London included artwork by Toronto artist and musician Reid Diamond (1958-2001) in a 2012 ECH-themed survey exhibition curated by Robert McKaskell (1943-2020). Inspired by hearing of King Ganam’s connection with Jamelie Hassan and her family, Diamond created a work of art using a jukebox that included King Ganam music. This work is now in Museum London’s collection.

Too many people mentioned here King Ganam, Reid Diamond and Robert McKaskell are gone.

All three were part of the Embassy hotel story or the Embassy Cultural House story or both those stories. As the ECH reveals a thrilling new iteration, let’s play some King Ganam and remember them.

James Stewart Reaney, October 26, 2020 


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Now online: Collection of posters and news clippings of Eric Stach's Free Music Unit

8/22/2020

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Many thanks to London musician Paul Aitken, who has made available his personal archive of posters, promotional pamphlets, and press clippings that he received from Eric Stach almost 30 years ago. Eric was a huge influence on Paul as a developing musician, and Paul went on to run similar music projects of his own over the intervening years. Paul's current project is influenced by Eric's free improvisation is the trio Aitken | Clark | Peacock, which you can learn about and listen/watch here.  To see the full collection of posters visit Eric Stach's page.

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Rare collection of Don Vincent's drawings from Jazz nights circa 1990

8/2/2020

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A big thank you to Esther Vincent for sharing with us drawings by her father, Don Vincent, from his sketch book done circa 1990 at the Embassy Cultural House. The drawings were done during Eric Stach's regular Free Music Unit performances which were held weekly on Thursday nights. 

Don Vincent, (1932-1993), a graduate of H.B. Beal Art and husband of London artist Bernice Vincent (1934-2016), worked as a graphic designer at London Life, but he was well-known for his documentary photographs of the art scene in London, Ontario. Don’s photographic archive is in the collection of the McIntosh Gallery, Western University, London, Ontario. ​

Bernice and Don were avid supporters of the Embassy Cultural House and regulars at Eric Stach's Free Music Unit events. These drawings capture the energy and dynamism of these musical events and the Embassy Cultural House era. 


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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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