“Music and Travel is my trade mark
Life is my source of inspiration
Life inspires me to create
I am a Composer and Explorer”
-David Fanshawe
David Fanshawe was, among many others things, a composer, ethnic sound recordist, photographer, TV personality, and a Churchill Fellow.
His ambition to record indigenous folk music began in the Middle East in 1966, and was intensified on subsequent journeys through North and East Africa (1969-75) and the Pacific (1978-88) resulting in his unique and highly original blend of music and travel. His work has been the subject of BBC TV documentaries including African Sanctus, Arabian Fantasy, Musical Mariner (National Geographic) and Tropical Beat.
Having led a truly remarkable life, David died suddenly in July 2010. David’s legacy is cemented in the David Fanshawe World Music Archive, recorded on his travels in Arabia, Africa, South East Asia and the Pacific between 1967 and 1994. Held in a special Trust, this integral Collection of original source material contains 3,200 analogue tapes, 40,000 colour slides and 70 hand-written journals. The Trust aims to protect and preserve the Archive maintaining the integrity of the collection and its contents. The Trust aims are threefold: to protect and preserve the Archive maintaining the integrity of the collection and its contents; complete the digitisation of all components of the Archive and its evolving catalogue and to promote the Archive as an accessible academic resource.
Life itself may have inspired David, but David’s life has been an inspiration to countless others. His work formed the basis of what we now call world music, long before the term was coined.
