06/01/2022
Gratitud💕 Gratitude
This track comes from a special recording session I had a few years ago with my dear friend Mario Benassi. All proceeds from this track will be donated to a local community center here on the shores of Lake Atitlán in his memory (more info on this below).
Mario was a beloved member of the community here in Guatemala before passing unexpectedly at the young age of 23. Mario was an incredibly inspired and talented musician who emanated joy and love everywhere he went. It was through his golden smile and heartfelt music that many of us here in Guatemala quickly embraced him as a dear brother.
I am so grateful to have had the chance to spend this afternoon with him recording his vocals and guitar for a track that was originally written by CJ Ananda Page (). I brought Mario in to harmonize and improvise on top of some of her lyrics and a simple melody. Mario went deep in this session and when I finally made my way back into this project a couple years later, I realized that the path to take was to create something new out of what we had recorded. I decided to call the track Gratitude in honor of the beautiful energy that Mario brought to my life and the lives of many in my community. He was always so full of joy that it inspired a sense of gratitude to be alive.
In honor of Mario and everything he brought to the people and the land here, I have decided to donate 100% of all proceeds from this track to the community center in Tzununá. I decided to donate the funds here because of their music program which is set up to teach the local Mayan children how to make music and play instruments. Here is more detailed information about the center: “The Community Center is a hub for education, culture, economic and social empowerment for the citizens of Tzununá. It is a place for young people and their families to get involved in opportunities for growing themselves and their community. The Center has a library (where many teaching activities happen like art, crafts, reading, drawing and so on), a Music Academy that provides music classes for children and young people. We have the goal for 2022 to reopen Café Tz´Unun and the womens cooperative where women will be able to sell their products. We have a training program with embroidery and crochet classes happening at the Community Library and we give scholarships for men and women to get trained in cooking classes, Carpentry, work with Iron and stylist. This empowers the people to have training and be able to open their own business or find a qualified job with someone else. We have done fundraising during 2021 for a Playground for the Children and to buy more musical instruments.”
You can support the community center directly by contacting: [email protected]
The artwork for this release was also graciously donated by local Guatemalan artist in support of this project.
Purchase or stream on all platforms here: https://fanlink.to/mose-gratitude-ft-mario-benassi
