Concert on Sunday, January 15 at Regent Theatre, Arlington

Mapfumo and Chad Urmston of Dispatch to lead songwriting and cultural exchange workshop with Simunye & Plugged In bands on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 16.

NEEDHAM [December 30, 2005] - On Sunday, January 15, from 1:00 - 9:00 p.m. at the Regent Theatre in Arlington, the Needham-based teen band program Plugged In will present a benefit concert for the Elias Fund, started by the band Dispatch to fund education for underprivileged children in Zimbabwe.

Plugged In is a non-profit organization founded by Tom Pugh and Sandra Rizkallah to provide area youth with the opportunity to work together in bands, building self-confidence and developing performance skills and songwriting abilities. The program also emphasizes the importance of giving back to the community and using music to make positive change in the world.

"At last year's concert, State Radio, a band led by Chad Urmston of Dispatch, performed, and teens in the program learned about the Dispatch Elias Fund to benefit Zimbabwean youth," explains Rizkallah. "This year, the bands voted to provide proceeds from their concert to the Elias Fund."

Rizkallah, who founded Plugged In with her husband, musician Tom Pugh, says that the charitable aspect of the program is crucial to its success. "Our goal with Plugged In is to have it be so meaningful for our students that they will continue using their music to help others throughout their lives."

The Plugged In benefit concert on Sunday, January 15 from 1:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Regent Theater, 7 Medford Street in Arlington, will feature twelve Plugged In teen bands joined by world music legend Thomas Mapfumo, the Zimbabwean teen band Simunye, Boston-based Venus Bullet, and a special performance from Urmston.

This year, participating teens will also take part in a special event following the concert.

On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Monday, January 16, Thomas Mapfumo will lead the Plugged In teen bands and Simunye in an afternoon of songwriting, performance, and discussions on Africa, views on the world, and ideas for bringing about positive change. Chad Urmston, from Dispatch will participate, as well as three college students from the Elias Fund who have just returned home from Zimbabwe and who will present a slide show and talk about their experience in Zimbabwe.

"We're thrilled that Thomas Mapfumo has agreed to lead these important workshops, giving bands from both countries a better understanding of one another's culture and musical traditions," says Pugh.

Known as the "Lion of Zimbabwe," Thomas Mapfumo has been giving voice to the people of his country for over three decades. He came of age during Zimbabwe's independence movement, and the struggle deeply influenced his music. His lyrics tackled the injustices of apartheid, racism, and colonialism. His songs of protest, performed in his native Shona language on traditional instruments, gave birth to a new genre of music-Chimurenga (from the Shona word for 'struggle.')

Since the 1980s, Mapfumo has been an outspoken critic of Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, which resulted in the banning of his music from the country's airwaves. But his influence remains strong, and he was named Artist of the Year by the American World Music Awards in 1999, and Zimbabwe's Person of the Century in the Arts in 2000. Today, Mapfumo lives in self-imposed exile in the U.S. with his family and his band, Blacks Unlimited. In July, they performed at the LIVE 8 concert in Cornwall, England.

Simunye is a vibrant teen band formed at the Zimbabwe Chapter of Music Crossroads. The youths-six boys and three girls-are from diverse backgrounds with varying musical abilities. They specialize in a wide range of musical genre, from afro jazz, traditional marimba and mbira to urban grooves, raga, and classical hip-hop. They perform in all three of Zimbabwe's official languages-Shona, Ndebele, and English. (Simunye is an Ndebele word, meaning 'we are one.') Their songwriting reflects both serious issues like HIV and AIDS as well as traditional and universal themes of family and young love.

Simunye will come to Boston through the help of the Music Crossroads Southern Africa project (MCSA). MCSA aims to empower African musicians between the ages of 15 and 27 through a combination of music, self-awareness, and HIV/AIDS education, and in the long-term, to build a self-sustainable cross-border youth music structure in the Southern African Development Community.

For more information about the Plugged In Teen Band program and the January 15 benefit concert, please visit www.pluggedinband.org or call 781/956-4281.

For press inquiries, contact Sandra Rizkallah @ 781-956-4281 or srizkallah@comcast.net.

The Plugged In Teen Band Program was established in 2002 by Tom Pugh and Sandra Rizkallah. Pugh, a Berklee alumni and musician for thirty years, is the music director for Plugged In. He is a member of two Boston-based bands and has played at the Montreal Jazz Festival. He has also been an engineer at WGBH in Boston for over twenty years. Sandra Rizkallah has a degree in film and television from Emerson College, has produced her own documentaries, and has worked in the post-production department of Nova at WGBH.