Favela Brass & DYJA Celebrate Carnival together! 

Usually, on Ash Wednesday, the students of Favela Brass, Rio de Janeiro, would take a parade to the streets of their favela as part of the Rio carnival celebrations. Sadly, this year it couldn't happen. At the same time, lockdown in the UK meant that DYJA students were missing the opportunities to play together in their respecitve bands.

MAMÃE EU QUERO

Knowing that Rio Carnival would have to be an online celebration this year for the musicians in Brazil, Favela Brass founder and DYJA alumnus Tom Ashe asked DYJO MD Stuart Garside if he thought DYJA would like to join the carnival fun. Stuart, having experienced first hand the incredible atmosphere of Carnival and having already worked on 2 lockdown projects, knew that this was an opportunity not to be missed.

Between the two teams in Doncaster and Rio, details were sorted and plans organised to bring the students together for a virtual celebration of Carnival. Each musician was given a part for Mamae eu quero - one of Brazil's most famous songs - and recorded themselves performing. Once all the recordings had been received, Amelia Thomas, a volunteer at Favela Brass, painstakingly put together the finished article. 

We are very proud of all the students involved in this collaborative project. It can be daunting, especially for the younger ones, to perform and deliver a recording without your band mates, however, we think they've all done a fantastic job and hope that this video will bring some of the joy of carnival to you all. 

To our friends at Favela Brass, we're sorry you had to miss out on Carnival as you know it, and hope that this project brought some of the carnival celebration atmosphere to you all. Thank you for inviting us to be part of #carnavalemcasa!

For the full video, check it out here.