What happens when a harpist, a marimba player and a steelpan drummer play an original Michael Colgrass score? Listen for yourself in this podcast's overview of the Cool Drummings Festival. All kinds of percussion got together for some of the weirdest and most beautiful classical mashups. Then we head to the Brazilian Carnival Ball, where papaya shrimp boats, painted bodies on parade and sincere tributes helped raise 22 million dollars for one special night.

When you're able, raising money can be fun. STAND Canada hosts its first Cocktails For A Cause event in Yorkville to help end genocide in Darfur, Sudan. I also went to the fourth annual A Benefit For WaterCan at the Steam Whistle Brewery, where MTV veejay Nicole Holness and model Stacey McKenzie were in attendance. Both were part of a soon-to-be-aired WaterCan public service announcement.

On this podcast we have falafels, beer and Chinese noodles at the opening night of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival. Then we head over to the Lend To End [Poverty] fundraiser to learn about micro-lending to women in South Africa, where the effects of apartheid continue to hinder progress.

There were also a couple of surprise guests - Ben Mulroney of CTV's Canadian Idol and Evan Solomon, host of CBC News: Sunday.

DiverCITY is back. It's been a number of months since I put one of these podcasts together, but here we go! This time on DiverCITY, I visit Filipino-Canadian photographer Alex Felipe's photo exhibit at Tinto Coffee House. He also tells me about his visit back to the Philippines and his discovery of Canada's mining sites which have caused loss of livelihood and heavy metal poisoning in the country's villages.


Related links for this podcast:

* Alex Felipe
* Mine! Mine! Mine! Next week's exhibit focused on foreign-owned mining and human rights in the Philippines
* The Kapisanan Philippine Centre in Kensington market.

Summer is here and there's much to see and do, culturally speaking. On this podcast I check out beats heard at Cravefest Toronto's first official freestyle battle and the Muhtadi International Drumming Festival.

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