Newsletter
October 2007
A Note from Raffi
Dear Friends,
After a summer spent recovering from a back ailment,
I'm back in the saddle and having fun with new work:
- Several songs are in progress towards a new CD
- Writing blogs, and pages towards a new book
- Learning to play the piano: my brain loves it
- Tweaking my keynote presentations
- Promoting my Renaissance DVD
Just returned from attending and singing at a Gentle Birthing conference in Portland. Prenatal and perinatal psychology is a growing field of valuable research and advocacy.
Recent connections with thinkers & movers include Barbara Marx Hubbard, Elisabet Sahtouris, Marcy Axness, Vicki Saunders, and Al Gore. COOL IT has joined the Step It Up 2007 campaign for reducing greenhouse gases, and we work to get the song known to students all across Canada and the U.S.
With my best,
Raffi
Raffi Renaissance DVD
Raffi’s new DVD—Raffi Renaissance: Child Honouring and the Compassion Revolution—was released this summer.
For the first time you can trace the path of Raffi's evolution into a global troubadour and thought leader on the major themes of our time.
The DVD includes:
- Raffi and the Dalai Lama in a dialogue on
Child Honouring - His performance for Nelson Mandela
- The Covenant for Honouring Children
- Raffi’s Honorary Degree speech
- New videos from his Resisto Dancing CD
- “Cool It” — the Global Cooling Song
- And much more...
To order, or for more information, click here
Al Gore In Vancouver
Al Gore's Vancouver presentation of his "inconvenient truth" on Saturday gave me the chance to greet an old friend whom I last saw in 1993 at the Vice-President's Executive Office in Washington. Singing my 'global cooling song' Cool It to close the evening provided the perfect opening.
I had been hoping for a reunion with the man who, with wife Tipper, embraced me in warm friendship the few times we were together in Toronto, Nashville, Rio, and Washington DC starting in 1989 when David Suzuki helped us connect. Read Full Article
It Takes A Village
The Raffi reference in a recent Report On Business article (Globe & Mail) is worth noting. University of British Columbia professor emeritus John Helliwell touts the song "The More We Get Together" (dear to Raffi fans) as the "social capital theme song". Helliwell has extensive research showing that a feeling of 'wellness' benefits not only health and longevity, but also workplace productivity.
Raffi met with Helliwell to discuss happiness. Raffi's song "It Takes A Village" (from the recent CD Resisto Dancing) is all about capitalizing on wellness by tapping it at the source: by honouring the children. Evidence shows that respecting the very young pays huge dividends in human, cultural and planetary terms. And, of course, it's the right thing to do.
asap's Hillary Rhodes interviews Raffi
Raffi Cavoukian - the gentle folk singer who brought us such virtuous favorites as "Baby Beluga" and "Five Little Ducks" -- is back, and he's trying to start a revolution. A juice box revolution, of sorts. Cavoukian is attempting to mobilize former Raffi kids to action now that they're adults.
His platform? He calls it "Child Honoring." Read Full Article