KUVO JAZZ and Newman Center Present Small Island Big Song!

Experience a journey into the soul of island nations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, meeting an ancient seafaring ancestry and confronting the impacts of the climate crisis. Combining music, spoken word and live cinema, the experience is framed in a theatrical narrative with panoramic visuals of the artists’ homelands.

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Drawing on a roster of respected First Nation artists, the concert features musicians performing irresistible oceanic grooves to soulful island ballads. Founded by Taiwanese producer and manager BaoBao Chen and Australian music producer and filmmaker Tim Cole in 2015, the two have been recording and filming with over a hundred musicians in nature across 16 island nations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The outcomes include two award-winning albums, a feature film, education programs, and a live concert that has toured around the world across four continents reaching over 200K+ live audiences since the world premiere at SXSW 2018.

Small Island Big Song explores the cultural connections between the descendants of the seafarers of the Pacific and Indian Oceans through the Austronesian migration. Working with artists who have made a choice to maintain the cultural voice of their people, to sing in the language, and to play the instruments of their land. These unique lineages mixed with their diverse contemporary styles – roots-reggae, beats, grunge, RnB, folk & spoken-word, establishing a contemporary musical dialogue between cultures as far afield as Madagascar, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Taiwan, Mauritius, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tahiti and Rapa Nui (Easter Island), creating “One coherent jaw-dropping piece” (Billboard). Music critic Tom Orr has noted in the RootsWorld review “….sounds like one very big, very happy family doing what they do best while helping get the word out on a most serious issue.”