“One question that troubles my mind on almost a daily basis is: ‘What is the best way to utilize music and the arts to help solve global problems?’” For Aaron Appleton, 27, the elusive answer to that self-posed question keeps him on the move, searching—spiritually and geographically—for truth in life and music. A native of Wisconsin, Appleton’s search has spanned 11 countries over the past five years as he has worked to refine his understanding of music’s potential for a world in need. 

Appleton is the Founder and Creative Director of Ensigo, an international NGO that engages creative practitioners—musicians, visual artists, photographers, filmmakers, and writers among others—in collaborative cross-cultural art projects. Appleton says Ensigo “believes in the power of music and art to offer a universally accessible medium that carries the voices and beauty of the world into people’s lives, elicits a sense of wonder, and awakens a spirit of involvement in the natural world, and a deeper sense of relatedness to other cultures.”

Currently living in Uganda’s capital city, Appleton has been working on Ensigo’s first “seeds” album, which will feature vocal melodies from Ugandan singers accompanied with instrumental tracks from American and European musicians. The original songs that ensue make for a fascinating listening experience – a meeting of cultures, disparate yet unified. Appleton also recruits visual artists and photographers to create artwork inspired by the music. All in all, the Uganda Seeds album will feature the contributions of over fifty artists from around the world. 

When the resulting product is uploaded and made available for purchase online, the album will literally become a seed for even more art projects in Uganda. Ensigo (which itself means ‘seeds’ in the Luganda language), will reinvest 100% of the album’s profit in the form of micro-grants that directly support Ugandan arts programs. It’s a win-win for music fans and communities alike, and the idea is to make a series of seeds albums with each showcasing and benefitting a different country of focus. Appleton hopes to release the debut Uganda Seeds album in mid-2012, and in the meantime has already begun recording tracks with singers in Guatemala and Belize. 

Author's Note: Below is a work-in-progress track snippet from the upcoming Uganda Seeds album, featuring a collaboration between the African Children's Choir, Nashville musician Andy Smith, and Andre Anjos of RAC. More track snippets can be found on Service Artist's Music page.  Planting Seeds

Ensigo’s evocation of the natural world and the imagery of planting seeds is no mistake. “It has been discovered that the regions of our planet which contain the most biological diversity also contain the most cultural diversity,” says Appleton. “This indicates that cultural and biological diversity are inextricably linked.” Appleton sees this connection as a revelation for Ensigo’s mission. “One of the most important issues for Ensigo to focus on is utilizing music and the arts to inspire people to live in ways that honor the web of life, each other, and future generations.” 

This relationship between biological and cultural diversity—biocultural diversity, as it has come to be called—has become the focus of Appleton’s work as a service artist. Appleton’s scholarly enthrallment with the subject is a mixture of inspiring and endearing: “The term is now becoming widely used to convey the rich interweave of humankind and nature, cultural pluralism and ecological integrity.”

As he tells it, the pursuit of biocultural diversity is a more promising and sustainable alternative than the standard practices of international development. “I went through what could be best described as a ‘dark night of the soul’ about one year ago,” Appleton confesses. “During this time I questioned the entire framework and industry that international development has become, as well as my current work with Ensigo.” He continues:

“I began to ask questions like: ‘What could the long-term repercussions of our work be, and what are we developing towards? Are we inadvertently promoting a more complex (and unsustainable) lifestyle, and generating new wants in the people we serve that will lead to an exponentially higher demand on the earth’s dwindling natural resources? In our emphasis on individualism and productivity are we inadvertently replacing deep relationships and community with computer screens and technology? Creating a less adaptable or accommodating society that places its values more on instant gratification? Is this a new form of colonialism? In promoting capitalism and economic development are we creating a society that works better for products than people? Are the modern cultural values we believe so strongly in like: productivity (monoculture), individuality (competition), result (efficiency), commerciality (market), or state law (global), any better or worse than say the contrasting Dayak tribe’s cultural values of: sustainability (biodiversity), collectivity (cooperation), process (effectiveness), subsistence (domesticity), and customary law (locality)?’”  

Photo above by Libby Gowen, copyright 2011

Adding onto those questions a litany of grim projections about the earth’s future—“Most experts are estimating a drastically accelerated loss of biodiversity in which approximately 50% of the world’s species are predicted to go extinct within the next 50 years”—and Appleton’s position begins to make a lot of sense. 

“Music and the arts play a strong role in the sustaining and evolution of cultures.  They also serve to be a powerful form of communication for inspiring change and creating memes.” Appleton is hoping Ensigo can help facilitate that communication. 

Discoveries
Appleton’s own experiences provide perhaps the best explanation for where his convictions come from. During his senior year at Greenville College (he did a “design your own major” degree which he titled Music Arts & International Development), Appleton made his first trip to East Africa for a semester-long practicum. Throughout the semester, he researched the relationship between music and development amongst the Sabine tribe of Eastern Uganda. His interactions with the Sabine challenged many of his previously held conceptions of music’s role in society:

“To the Sabine tribe, music, rather than being a gate to fame or wealth, is viewed more as a communal activity. In this activity participants regardless of skill, age, professional training, or experience joyfully and unashamedly join in, in a quite egalitarian manner. Many of their songs are used to convey myths and beautiful stories of their tribe’s past, both for the enjoyment of community and their next generation of children. It also serves as a way to build up and encourage one another, and search for meaning and answers to age old questions of love, brokenness, and why we are here.”

For Appleton, himself a skilled multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, this engagement with music felt so different than anything he had experienced in the Western world. “Generally musicians are not iconized, but rather simply respected for their gift as another way to contribute to the community,” Appleton discovered. “You’ll find that the tendency to monetize this art form is not found there, and that musicians, like other people in the community, hold regular jobs like farming and tending cattle, and usually find fulfillment more from their contributions to building up the community than in individual creative achievements.”

Moving from village to village, Appleton began recording the music and voices he was hearing. During the course of his practicum semester, he made over 900 recordings spanning 7 tribes, 6 languages and 2 countries. 16 of his favorite tracks were compiled to create East Africa in Binaural, Ensigo’s first effort in crossing cultures and using the power of consumers to benefit artistic development (like the forthcoming Seeds album, 100% of the profits generated by East Africa in Binaural have gone back to communities that lent their talents to recording it). 

The tracks on the album are raw, untouched, and have a genuine intimacy to them. Recorded in churches, mud huts, bedrooms, town halls, and one imagines, under the shade of trees, the listener feels right there with the musicians and community members: children, mothers, teachers, and elders among them. 

Describing one of the tracks on the album, titled Jesus, Appleton recalls the scene: “One day as I was on my way to make some recordings of a choir, I walked past a church and heard some giggling, drumming and singing. So I popped my head in the door, and there was a small group of five children playing an English song that was taught to them by their parents. I loved the playfulness and joy that they exuded so I decided to make some recordings of them performing.” 

Author's note: "Jesus" can be listened to below. To stream the whole album, visit ensigo.bandcamp.com

Sharing a passage from his journal that he wrote while recording the album, Appleton’s words reveal a lot about music’s ability to communicate not just the intentions and emotions of the people performing it, but the history, values, and sense of place arising from the culture to which they belong: 

“Seated atop Mt. Elgon and bordered by rolling green peaks to the East and the Great Rift Valley to the West sits Piswa, with vast open spaces and magnificent waterfalls giving off the aura of paradise, and capturing the heart of many travelers journeying through. No running water or electricity serves to separate this small community from modernization and industrialization, resulting in a primarily agrarian based economy. Here mothers unashamedly breast-feed in public. And the men build their family’s houses in the same manner their ancestors did for hundreds of years, with thick mud for walls, intertwining sticks for the framework, and straw for a thatch roof.… The whoops, shouts, clapping hands, and pounding of dancing feet resounded off the mud walls of the church as the villagers partook in one of the most pure and genuine performances that I have ever experienced. At one point I struggled to hold back the emotions that threatened to take over as I reflected on the immense beauty of their art.” 

One gets the sense that Appleton’s journeys and willingness to engage in the big questions and moral struggles surrounding the intersection of music, life, and development work has been fruitful, although thankfully for all of us, probably never finished. Where does he see his service and art headed?

Photo above by Joel Isababi, copyright 2011

“Putting relationships first and building a family of friends across geographic, cultural, political and linguistic lines is a priority with Ensigo. So with that in mind I hope that we can simply continue doing what we’re doing by bringing amazing people with loving hearts from the U.S. and teaming them up with other amazing people with loving hearts from Uganda, Belize, Guatemala, and wherever we are able to work next.”