Dear Friends,

It is with great excitement that we write to you on the eve of Talisman’s 20th anniversary. Two decades ago, Joe Pigato founded a group of singers with the mission of bringing “culturally substantive music” to the Stanford community. Since its inception, Talisman has maintained roots in the musics and histories of the African Diaspora, especially music of solidarity and resistance from apartheid South Africa.

However, time and conversation have brought us to engage with musical traditions from all over the world. Such an ambitious foray into a diverse repertoire has challenged Talisman members and audiences, but has also been the catalyst for the explosive growth of the Talisman community, which includes current members and alumni as well as family and supporters like you.

First and foremost, we would like to extend an invitation for you to attend Talisman’s 20th anniversary concert on February 15th, 2010, in Stanford’s Memorial Auditorium, at 7:00 PM. Alumni and supporters from across the country will be present to celebrate our rich history as a singing group as well as support its future potential. It will be quite a sight to behold hundreds of people connected to Talisman in one place, and we keenly hope that you will join us in this exciting experience.

As our community gathers together in just a couple of months, we can gaze proudly upon what we have accomplished in the past twenty years. From singing at the White House to the 1996 Olympics, and most recently with the artist Seal in September, Talisman has made a name for itself. Thanks to the generosity of supporters like you, Talisman has returned to South Africa multiple times in the past years to reinvigorate our connection with our musical roots. We have created relationships with many organizations in Cape Town and Johannesburg, like the Amy Biehl Foundation. These collaborations continue to be fruitful, and the trips have given Talisman a great sense of purpose and a chance to connect firsthand with the root of our repertoire as we continue to explore the musical traditions of South Africa.

Talisman would like to return to South Africa this year and continue to foster a working relationship with these communities, but we would also like to branch out. This year we hope to embark on a partnership with an ensemble of Ugandan children called the Peace Africa Children's Ensemble. These children range from ages 6-18, and are sponsored by a Ugandan college music student that participated in a music and drama exchange program with Stanford. The student, named Omulanda Kibrige, or Ronald as he prefers, lost his parents at a young age but was identified by an organization that trained him to play and sing music, changing his life forever. Now Ronald does the same for twenty children, providing them with room, board, music classes, and monetary support to attend school. We as Talisman hope to collaborate and engage with these children musically, intellectually, and personally by sponsoring some of them to meet us in Capetown, South Africa. Along with children in music programs sponsored by the Amy Biehl Foundation, Talisman envisions a cross-cultural exchange between all three ensembles. In the future, Talisman may visit the Peace Africa ensemble in Uganda to continue to collaborate. We would like to participate in a real manifestation of the power of music to effect social change.

And that is where we are now. We hope to make this dream of ours a reality, and we need your help to do it. Regardless, we see exciting new things on the horizon for Talisman, but they are really just extensions on the solid twenty year-old foundation laid by those who have come before us. Talisman is still about using music to connect stories and people from all over the world. We hope that you will take the chance to bring your story into the fold.

For a more detailed description of both Talisman and our goals for this year, feel free to explore our website. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have further questions.

Sincerely,

Talisman