Uganda interfaith tunes win prize

BOSTON — “Delicious Peace,” a CD of original Ugandan songs about coffee and religious unity produced by Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, won best world traditional album at the 13th annual Independent Music Awards.

The CD, on Smithsonian Folkways Records, was created by Peace Kawomera, an interfaith cooperative of fair trade coffee growers started by J.J. Keki, a long-time leader of the Abayudaya, the Jewish community of Uganda. Keki, respected for his courage in sustaining Uganda’s Jews through repressive times, organized the coffee cooperative as a way to foster economic development and peaceful relations among Jewish, Christian and Muslim Ugandans.

Songs on the CD, including “Get Up and Grow Coffee!” and “Let All Religions Come Together,” were written by the farmers as they worked, and feature the African-beat of village guitar groups and women’s choirs. The singers are accompanied with xylophone, drums and other traditional instruments.

Summit, long-time executive director and rabbi at Tufts University Hillel, is an ethnomusicologist and a research professor of music at the university. He has had a long association with the Abayudaya, recording the Grammy-nominated album “Abayudaya: Music of the Jewish People of Uganda.” This new venture combines Summit’s passions for music, world peace and coffee.