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'Our Island' on tour 2023-24
'what will we tell our children if we fail to protect our planet?'
Small Island Big Song is a music, film and performing arts project uniting the islands of the Pacific and Indian Ocean through artistic collaboration, a contemporary and relevant musical statement from a region that shares an ancient seafaring heritage and the impact of our changing sea.
Motivated by their concerns for the ocean, Taiwanese theater producer BaoBao Chen and Australian music producer/filmmaker Tim Cole spent the past 8 years visiting artists on sixteen island nations of the Pacific & Indian Oceans, recording with their guidance in nature, sharing songs from island to island. Outcomes include two award-winning albums, a feature film and a world-touring concert.
Small Island Big Song - LISTWAR ZANSET ft. Emlyn & Putad
Small Island Big Song - TA'U TAMA ft' Vaiteani & Luc
Small Island Big Song - PINAGSANGA ft' Putad
Small Island Big Song 小島大歌 - MADJADJUMAK ft' Sauljaljui 戴曉君
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"Our ancestors were bridge builders, they found strengths in forming allies in unity. Our generation must keep walking this path to continue the essence of our core values." - Sauljaljui, Paiwan - Taiwan
“We are the proud sailors of the Pacific, seeing the ocean not as a threat, but something we sail and sustains us, but recently this is not the case." - Selina Leem, Marshallese, The Marshall Islands
“If the reef loses its colour, if our island is swallowed up, what will I tell my son?" - Vaiteani & Luc, Tahitian, Tahiti
"In our globalised, computerised world, music can bring us awareness of who we are, our history and our values and our connection to nature. I bring what my grandfather poured into me.” - Yoyo Tuki, Rapa Nui - Easter Island
“How can we respond to the issue of our era,
our planet’s future as theater and music creators?”
Culture is the framework through which we understand our relationship to our social and physical environments. It is our shared patterns of behavior, interactions, and beliefs. Fluid, ever evolving and whether we are aware of it or not, it is the core of our guiding personal narratives, our sense of self.
Our dominant global culture is failing us. Our planet’s natural ecosystem on which we depend for our very survival, is collapsing around us. The evidence is tangible, lived and indisputable. Yet we fail to respond with the resolve and urgency that nature, that our future generations demand.
Those of the ocean have maintained successful communities on fragile islands for countless generations and their cultural lineage embodies this. Small Island Big Song is an ensemble of such people, artists who against the mainstream have made a choice to sing foremost in the language and maintain the musical sensibilities of their heritage. They are the songkeepers continuing an unbroken cultural lineage back to their first ancestors to step, sleep, die and be born on their homelands. Their music embodies this knowledge, and as with music itself, it is only revealed through movement as it is shared, through your listening it lives.
Some of us will lose our island homes to rising sea levels and all of us are witnessing the death of our reefs and disappearing sea life, it’s soul destroying. Our response is to share that loss in song, supporting each other and you, the listener, but also to celebrate nature and our cultures. We do live in extraordinarily beautiful places and we want to share that, too.
We have to, for our island we all share.
BaoBao Chen & Tim Cole,
Small Island Big Song co-founders
New Album 'Our Island' out now
‘Our Island’ was recorded remotely from our island homes. Many of us have never met in person, we are yet to discover if we have legs. Online we shared our stories, songs, concerns and loves, usually interrupted by Sammy’s spontaneous Kabosy solos, Putad, Vaiteani & Luc’s children or our internet freezing again (even in the tropics!).
We could support each other in our concerns for our planet, we know at times these feelings are overwhelming, that’s a healthy response, but know you are not alone, there are many sharing these feelings. We are a part of a movement, a momentum for cultural change which puts our relationship to our planet at its core.
Available at our concerts & online order. Shipping included.
#1 Trans Global Music Chart 2022 Feb
Nominated - 2022 Golden Melody Awards TAIWAN - Best Indigenous Album & Album of the Year
Filmed by Tim & BaoBao over three years traveling across 16 Island nations of the Pacific & Indian Oceans, this grassroots musical follows the seafaring migration uniting ancient musical lineages. From Madagascar to Rapa Nui/Easter Island, Taiwan to Zenadth Kes/The Torres Strait. A heartfelt plea for environmental awareness and cultural preservation from those on the frontline of the climate crisis. Year 2020 | Length 83 minutes | A Small Island Big Song production
★★★★★ Sydney Morning Herald, AU
★★★★★ Songlines Magazine, UK
Lauren Laverne's Album of the week on BBC Radio 6
Winner - 2019 Songlines Music Award UK - Best Asia/Pacific album
Winner - 2019 The Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik (German Record Critics' Awards) - Album of the Year
Nominated - 2019 Independent Music Awards US - Best Concept Album
Nominated - 2019 Independent Music Awards US - Best Website
A Fair Trade Music Release - 50% of net profit goes back to the artists & NGOs. All physical albums come with a 56-page full color booklet, no single use plastic.
Past tours inc' Stanford, Penn State, Dartmouth, UConn, UMass, UIL, UIUC, Miami-Dade, SXSW - USA, Capital of Culture 2023, Italy, Rudolstadt fest'- Germany, Førde fest'- Norway, EtnoSur fest'- Spain, Colours of Ostrava - Czech Rep., Torba Arts Fest, Vanuatu & more
Small Island Big Song 'Our Island'
2023/24 tours
2023 MAR' WOMADelaide Festival, Australia
2023 APR' TIFA at National Concert Hall, Taiwan
2023 JUL' Moonlight Sea Concerts, Taiwan
2023 AUG' ACC World Music Festival, South Korea
2023 NOV' Performing Arts Centre - NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE
2023 DEC' COP28 at Expo City Dubai, UAE
2024 FEB' to APR' 18 Performing Arts Centers, USA
Drawing on a roster of respected islander artists, the concert features musicians performing irresistible oceanic grooves to soulful island ballads engaging audiences from huge festival stages to intimate theatres. Combining music, spoken word and live cinema with AV projections featuring footage collected during a 3-year film trip across 16 countries guided by the artists on their homelands.
Small Island Big Song is a music, film and performing arts project uniting the islands of the Pacific and Indian Ocean through artistic collaboration, a contemporary and relevant musical statement from a region that shares an ancient seafaring heritage and the impact of our changing sea.
After hearing the 5th IPCC report, Taiwanese theatre producer BaoBao Chen and Australian music producer/filmmaker Tim Cole quit their jobs and spent three years visiting artists on their homelands, recording with their guidance in nature, sharing songs from island to island. The outcomes include two award-winning albums, a feature film, edu' programs, and a live concert that has toured to eighteen countries of four continents reaching over 200K+ live audiences since the world premiere at SXSW 2018.
Small Island Big Song explores the cultural connections of the vast ocean 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, Taiwan, Mauritius, Marshall Islands, Papua New Guinea, Tahiti and Rapa Nui, creating "One coherent jaw dropping piece" as described by Rob Schwartz - Billboard.
Small Island Big Song was the winner of the 2019 German Record Critics’ Awards for Album of the Year and from the UK, the Songlines Music Awards 2019 for Best Asia/Pacific album and nominees for the US Independent Music Awards 2019 for Best Concept Album and Best Music Website. The album was also chosen by Lauren Laverne as "Album of the week" on BBC Radio 6.
Music critic Tom Orr has noted in the RootsWorld (US) review “….sound like one very big, very happy family doing what they do best while helping get the word out on a most serious issue.”
“Simply brilliant” ★★★★★
Seth Jordan, Songlines, UK
“For too long the term ‘world music’ has applied overwhelmingly to music from
Africa, the Indian subcontinent and South America.
Asia and the Pacific have been the Cinderellas at the party. Not anymore!” ★★★★★
Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald, AUSTRALIA
‘One of our favorite albums of the week, it’s not the usual thing’
Lauren Laverne, BBC Radio 6, UK
“A playful and potent soundtrack. Utterly wonderful”
Stuart Derdeyn, Vancouver Sun, CANADA
“Beautiful cinematography and incredible music…
one coherent, jaw-dropping piece’’
Rob Schwartz, Billboard Asia, JAPAN
“Impassioned choruses are joined with polyrhythmic beats,
meditative passages cool the pace between songs tailor-made for dancing,
indigenous instruments support modern sensibilities and vice versa, and
all 74 minutes of the album sound like one very big, very happy family doing what they do best
while helping get the word out on a most serious issue."
Tom Orr, Roots World, USA
behind the scene videos
Behind the Scenes - TA'U TAMA - Small Island Big Song ft. Vaiteani & Luc
Behind the Scenes - Pinagsanga - Small Island Big Song ft. Putad
Vaiteani - A letter to my child in 2050
EP.63 千年後重逢的南島吟唱｜藝術很有事
We would love to keep you in the loop, lots of the exciting stuff coming up!
