EscapeTravels Musical Charity Climb
Donation protected
On January 29, 2016, five string musicians hailing from three countries met at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Their objective: to climb the 19,341ft (5895m) mountain, set a world record by playing music together at the summit, and raise money and awareness for a groundbreaking local school, The Kilimahewa Educational Centre.
At 8:15am on February 4th, after 5 days of trekking and a final 8 hours of continuous walking through the night, they reached Uhuru Peak summit, nicknamed “the Roof of Africa” as the highest point on the whole continent. Despite the low oxygen and below freezing temperatures, they then performed a new tune "Kilimanjaro", which was co-written especially for the occasion by four prominent musicians and only finished half-way up the mountain!
Kilimahewa Educational Centre is a community centre that started in 2007 under a tree by local community members trying to help teens and each other change their circumstances and find ways to combat the challenges of poverty.
The centre is located near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro and provides an educational option for students and community members who:
- Lack basic skills to attend secondary school or gain employment
- Have learning difficulties or cannot learn in the normal school system
- Lack financial means to attend secondary schools
- Want to develop computer skills, business skills, or English proficiency
The musical charity climb idea was first born through a chance meeting between world-renowned bluegrass and old-time fiddler Brittany Haas (who had wanted to climb Kilimanjaro ever since studying the nearby yellow baboon population as an evolutionary biologist in her college years) and Dan Latner, a seasoned expedition leader for Escape Travels who is also a talented singer, songwriter, and fiddle player.
Escape Travels has run nearly 200 group trips in over 25 countries, and dozens of private trips. Escape believes that the opportunity to visit all these unique destinations comes with a responsibility to assist and uplift the communities that are so welcoming to our travellers. Through our Giving Back program, we connect our community of travellers with small, grassroots organizations that have already demonstrated successful initiatives in the regions in which they operate.
You can watch a video of the summit performance here:
Below you can find links to more videos and photos, and read more about Kilimahewa Educational Centre, Escape Travels, the musicians, the trip, and the story of how the tune was composed.
Please donate to this charity climb and help us provide the school with:
- School furniture (desks, chairs and blackboards)
- A science laboratory (lab tables, science equipment, materials)
- Feminine hygiene and teenage reproductive health seminars
- A lunch program (food, cook, firewood)
- Library books for the community library
Every additional donation will also contribute to the student sponsorship costs for students that are able to attend secondary school but lack financial means. One year of secondary school per student including tuition, room and board, personal supplies, textbooks, and pocket money costs US$1,500.
About Kilimahewa Educational Centre
Founded in 2007, the Kilimahewa Educational Centre has grown into a fully-staffed multi-dimensional school through the efforts of volunteers and grant funding. The Centre provides courses for children and adults in reading, math, science, and other academic subjects as well as life skills courses such as reproductive health and agricultural education. It has become a vital resource to Kilimahewa and the surrounding area, providing clean, safe water, a library, and a meeting place for the community. Recently, a solar powered generator was installed, providing internet access and opening a whole new world of opportunities for the residents.
More information is available on their website.
About Escape Travels
Since Escape Travels cannot personally oversee the projects which we help fund, we instead secure strong relationships with the leaders of the organizations with whom we choose to work. For example, we previously helped build a school in Nepal.
In July 2013, on our first trip up Mount Kilimanjaro, we met the board of the Kilimahewa Educational Centre and their U.S. funders, EdPowerment. Since then, we have seen first-hand the fantastic work that Kilimahewa and EdPowerment does in bringing education to underprivileged children and young adults in the Kilimanjaro region.
We are proud to be using our Kilimanjaro climb as a platform to raise money for Kilimahewa as they continue their work.
About the musicians
Brittany Haas is one of the finest fiddle players around, and is known for her work with Crooked Still, Dave Rawlings Machine, Steve Martin, and countless other musical projects.
Corinna Smith is an accomplished fiddler and educator who currently tours with the Boston-based Adam Ezra Group, previously played with the theatrical music group Barrage, and has taught in the US, Canada, and Singapore.
Dan Latner is an experienced expedition leader for Escape Travels, and also a talented singer, songwriter, and fiddle player from Toronto, Canada. “No Fun Intended”, Dan’s first solo album is now available online.
Leigh Rudner is currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania facilitating community-based agriculture and health education projects in a rural village in the Southern Highlands. She has extensive experience teaching cello and performing solo, in chamber ensembles, orchestrally, and with acoustic groups.
Adam Spiers is a multi-genre cellist based in London, UK, specialising in jazz and tango. Adam had previously become friends with Brittany and Corinna through musical visits to the USA, and after hearing about the trip decided to join and take his cello up the mountain to play at the summit with the group.
About the trip
You can read a description of the trip’s itinerary on the Escape Travels website.
You can see many more photos from the trip.
Fellow climber and documentarian Charvak Karpe kindly filmed many videos of the trip.
After the climb, the quintet played a benefit concert for the school, inviting all the members of the Moshi town community to hear their music, sing songs together featuring the Kilimahewa students, and collectively support the continuance of the school. After years of waiting, Brittany also finally met some yellow baboons!
About the tune
Inspired by the band’s expedition plans, renowned songwriter and tunesmith Mark Simos hatched a plan to write a brand new tune to be performed atop the peak. His vision was to musically represent the contours of the ascent: beginning in the savannah and climbing up into the densely rainforested foothills, through the sprawling desert slopes and finally peaking at the glaciated summit.
Mark wrote the first section and passed it along to master old-time musician Bruce Molsky who added his part and passed it next to wacky and wonderfully creative fiddler Darol Anger who wrote the "C part" (which he cleverly designed to be both groovy and easy to remember at 19,000 feet).
Just before the hike started, Darol sent an mp3 of the unfinished tune to Brittany. It was a tense scene as the hiking band battled with Tanzanian internet to download the song, but they finally succeeded. The culminating section of the tune was composed by night, halfway up the mountain at Barranco camp.
The band performed the tune again two days after climb, having slept and regained their regular (if somewhat quirky) mental states at low altitude:
At 8:15am on February 4th, after 5 days of trekking and a final 8 hours of continuous walking through the night, they reached Uhuru Peak summit, nicknamed “the Roof of Africa” as the highest point on the whole continent. Despite the low oxygen and below freezing temperatures, they then performed a new tune "Kilimanjaro", which was co-written especially for the occasion by four prominent musicians and only finished half-way up the mountain!
Kilimahewa Educational Centre is a community centre that started in 2007 under a tree by local community members trying to help teens and each other change their circumstances and find ways to combat the challenges of poverty.
The centre is located near the base of Mount Kilimanjaro and provides an educational option for students and community members who:- Lack basic skills to attend secondary school or gain employment
- Have learning difficulties or cannot learn in the normal school system
- Lack financial means to attend secondary schools
- Want to develop computer skills, business skills, or English proficiency
The musical charity climb idea was first born through a chance meeting between world-renowned bluegrass and old-time fiddler Brittany Haas (who had wanted to climb Kilimanjaro ever since studying the nearby yellow baboon population as an evolutionary biologist in her college years) and Dan Latner, a seasoned expedition leader for Escape Travels who is also a talented singer, songwriter, and fiddle player.
Escape Travels has run nearly 200 group trips in over 25 countries, and dozens of private trips. Escape believes that the opportunity to visit all these unique destinations comes with a responsibility to assist and uplift the communities that are so welcoming to our travellers. Through our Giving Back program, we connect our community of travellers with small, grassroots organizations that have already demonstrated successful initiatives in the regions in which they operate.
You can watch a video of the summit performance here:
Below you can find links to more videos and photos, and read more about Kilimahewa Educational Centre, Escape Travels, the musicians, the trip, and the story of how the tune was composed.
Please donate to this charity climb and help us provide the school with:
- School furniture (desks, chairs and blackboards)
- A science laboratory (lab tables, science equipment, materials)
- Feminine hygiene and teenage reproductive health seminars
- A lunch program (food, cook, firewood)
- Library books for the community library
Every additional donation will also contribute to the student sponsorship costs for students that are able to attend secondary school but lack financial means. One year of secondary school per student including tuition, room and board, personal supplies, textbooks, and pocket money costs US$1,500.
About Kilimahewa Educational Centre
Founded in 2007, the Kilimahewa Educational Centre has grown into a fully-staffed multi-dimensional school through the efforts of volunteers and grant funding. The Centre provides courses for children and adults in reading, math, science, and other academic subjects as well as life skills courses such as reproductive health and agricultural education. It has become a vital resource to Kilimahewa and the surrounding area, providing clean, safe water, a library, and a meeting place for the community. Recently, a solar powered generator was installed, providing internet access and opening a whole new world of opportunities for the residents.
More information is available on their website.
About Escape Travels
Since Escape Travels cannot personally oversee the projects which we help fund, we instead secure strong relationships with the leaders of the organizations with whom we choose to work. For example, we previously helped build a school in Nepal.
In July 2013, on our first trip up Mount Kilimanjaro, we met the board of the Kilimahewa Educational Centre and their U.S. funders, EdPowerment. Since then, we have seen first-hand the fantastic work that Kilimahewa and EdPowerment does in bringing education to underprivileged children and young adults in the Kilimanjaro region.
We are proud to be using our Kilimanjaro climb as a platform to raise money for Kilimahewa as they continue their work.
About the musicians
Brittany Haas is one of the finest fiddle players around, and is known for her work with Crooked Still, Dave Rawlings Machine, Steve Martin, and countless other musical projects.
Corinna Smith is an accomplished fiddler and educator who currently tours with the Boston-based Adam Ezra Group, previously played with the theatrical music group Barrage, and has taught in the US, Canada, and Singapore.
Dan Latner is an experienced expedition leader for Escape Travels, and also a talented singer, songwriter, and fiddle player from Toronto, Canada. “No Fun Intended”, Dan’s first solo album is now available online.
Leigh Rudner is currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania facilitating community-based agriculture and health education projects in a rural village in the Southern Highlands. She has extensive experience teaching cello and performing solo, in chamber ensembles, orchestrally, and with acoustic groups.
Adam Spiers is a multi-genre cellist based in London, UK, specialising in jazz and tango. Adam had previously become friends with Brittany and Corinna through musical visits to the USA, and after hearing about the trip decided to join and take his cello up the mountain to play at the summit with the group.
About the trip
You can read a description of the trip’s itinerary on the Escape Travels website.
You can see many more photos from the trip.
Fellow climber and documentarian Charvak Karpe kindly filmed many videos of the trip.
After the climb, the quintet played a benefit concert for the school, inviting all the members of the Moshi town community to hear their music, sing songs together featuring the Kilimahewa students, and collectively support the continuance of the school. After years of waiting, Brittany also finally met some yellow baboons!
About the tune
Inspired by the band’s expedition plans, renowned songwriter and tunesmith Mark Simos hatched a plan to write a brand new tune to be performed atop the peak. His vision was to musically represent the contours of the ascent: beginning in the savannah and climbing up into the densely rainforested foothills, through the sprawling desert slopes and finally peaking at the glaciated summit.
Mark wrote the first section and passed it along to master old-time musician Bruce Molsky who added his part and passed it next to wacky and wonderfully creative fiddler Darol Anger who wrote the "C part" (which he cleverly designed to be both groovy and easy to remember at 19,000 feet).
Just before the hike started, Darol sent an mp3 of the unfinished tune to Brittany. It was a tense scene as the hiking band battled with Tanzanian internet to download the song, but they finally succeeded. The culminating section of the tune was composed by night, halfway up the mountain at Barranco camp.
The band performed the tune again two days after climb, having slept and regained their regular (if somewhat quirky) mental states at low altitude:
Organizer and beneficiary
Kerri Elliott
Organizer
Upper Saddle River, NJ
Moira Madonia
Beneficiary