Toni Childs performance with Laura Targett at the Rebuild Nepal Benefit Concert at the Crystal Castle next weekend, on Saturday May 30, has a deeply personal meaning for the singer, who was in Nepal only 36 hours before the earthquake hit.

It was their last day in Nepal and singer Toni Childs, her camera crew, band and their trekking party were packing up their gear. “We’d consolidated our luggage into one room on the top floor of the hotel in Thamel, the old city where we were staying,” Childs says, “and when I went up to collect the gear, I was standing looking out from the roof top – and I could see all these makeshift, cobbled together houses. I remember thinking, ‘if there was an earthquake here it would be absolutely devastating.’”

36 hours later, at midday on April 25, when Childs was back safely in Australia the earthquake struck, killing more than 8,000 people and injuring approximately 19,000 more. Hundreds of thousands of people were made homeless and entire villages, UNESCO World Heritage sites and centuries-old buildings were destroyed. Its epicentre was the village of Barpak, in the Gorkha district.

Toni Childs (front centre in grey) and her band of merry men and women – just days before the earthquake hit. Photo: Renae Saxby.

“There’s no words to describe what we felt when we heard,” says the US-born singer-songwriter who now lives much of the time in the Byron Shire. “Of course we were relieved we weren’t there, but at the same time we had just come back from this extraordinary experience of creating an album almost on top of the world, and to hear the news was just devastating.”

Childs, who has been nominated for a Grammy three times, and whose career has included songs such as Don’t Walk Away, I’ve Got to Go Now’, and the Emmy-award-winning Because You’re Beautiful had been in Nepal with her husband, Mik La Vage, and her other band members to debut her next album, It’s All a Beautiful Noise. “I’d had this idea to perform part of Beautiful Noise in Nepal,” she says. “I’d been trekking in Nepal before and I had this kind of crazy notion to do free concerts on Poon Hill on the Annapurna Circuit. It was epic, incredible, physically challenging and really, really cold.”

It’s truly not that easy to imagine how someone might actually achieve the goal of taking a group of 52 people, including two Nepalese guides, 25 sherpas, the band, musicians, crew, musical instruments and some trekkers up 10,000 feet in somewhat questionable weather, in order to perform music, but in the way of magical moments, everything came together.

Just one of the many pieces of equipment that had to be hauled up 10,000 feet. Photo: Renae Saxby

“We were just really lucky,” Childs says. “Although the weather was grey it didn’t prevent us from performing, and only two of our party were challenged by the altitude – one of them was our sound guy Adam, but he just took it really easy and he was able to cope. I must say though, I was standing with my husband Mik, who plays guitar, and my lead guitarist Christian, and I were  wondering how on earth our fingers – let alone the instruments – were going to be able to cope.”

As it turned out, there was no need to worry. “Our spirit met the moment,” she says. “There is something about the power of that land itself, and the vista and exactly where we were at that point in time. What we were experiencing was monumental – I looked at Christian, and we both started crying at just the same moment. I felt my voice grow a million times to fill the largest stadium in the world – and it seemed as if I was singing to the whole planet. It was stellar, indefinable, a heart-expanding peak experience, and made now all the more unique by what happened such a short time afterwards.”

Singer Toni Childs: “We simply couldn’t imagine not helping those in Nepal,” she says of the Benefit Concert at the Crystal Castle

For Childs herself, the road from her early career to where she is now was not always a smooth trajectory – her career had to take a second place to her health when she was diagnosed with Graves disease and mercury poisoning. Relocating to Hawaii the singer focused on her health and the long road to recovery, moving to Australia in 2013. Her new project It’s All a Beautiful Noise, is an ambitious artistic project, involving not just music but installations and exhibitions as well.

On the way back to Australia from Nepal Childs was giving a concert in Bali, and it was there that she met up with Naren and Sono, the owners of the Crystal Castle. “We talked together and we simple couldn’t imagine not helping those in Nepal in some way or other,” she says, and so the idea of a benefit concert at the Castle was born. Needless to say they were only too keen to come on board, and various other local community organizations jumped at the chance as well – it quickly came together and became bigger than the original idea. “We are going to create a one-hour broadcast with some of the best performances of the event, and make a documentary that will be aired nationally on Community Radio Stations around the country,” Childs explains.

Paper artwork for It’s All a Beautiful Noise

As well as music, Childs is playing to her strength as an artist and organizer of grand logistics by pulling together an art auction <https://www.charityauctionorganizer.com/auction/rebuildnepal>  with donations of art work by well-known artists to be auctioned online, and 100% of the money going to Nepal. It’s meant that she has had to extend her deadline somewhat for her own creative endeavour – fabricating nine full-size paper animals that are on the endangered list, as part of an installation for It’s All a Beautiful Noise. “We’re planning to send the animals to various centres in regional Australia, in conjunction with an exhibition, and then followed by the concert,” says Childs, who was gifted with as much paper as she needed for the project by MPI, who own the 125-year-old paper mill near Geelong in Victoria where Childs is currently based, finishing the project, as well as organizing the benefit concert and the online art auction.

Toni Childs and her husband Mik Lavage.

Childs art came about as part of her immersion into meditation. “I used to look for non-denominational quiet places in LA where I lived, so I could meditate,” she says, “but it’s hard to meditate in public spaces, so I began to design seven spaces based on the elements, the chakras and sacred geometry, so that these spaces could be used within other, larger buildings for quiet reflection and meditation. It’s part of my growth as an artist, a need to go deeper, and I think the installations are absolutely a reflection of that.”

As for reflecting on the earthquake, Childs deep voice drops even further as she talks about her thoughts since she’s been home. “I’ve thought about it constantly,” she says. “In the end there are things we have to take on board – Mother Nature, the Earth, she has to move herself, and unfortunately that means disaster from time to time. This earthquake would have been devastating in a place built to withstand them, let alone in Nepal – and then followed by a second one. It’s hard to come to terms with it, but one of the ways to do it, is to help – it’s that simple.”

www.toni-childs.com

Please join us on 30th May from 3pm to 7pm

at the Crystal Castle & Shambhala Gardens

for the

Rebuild Nepal Benefit Concert

with Toni Childs & Laura Targett

+ Special Guests.

Donation – $25 + booking fee

(the full amount will go to the cause)

Click here for more information about Toni’s story and the event.

Tickets available from www.oztix.com.au or at the Crystal Castle on the day.

Gates open at midday.

The following is an excerpt from Toni Childs letter to galleries and artists:

“If you are a Gallery or an Artist, and would like to donate art for our fundraiser please send an email to Renae Saxby [email protected]   Renae Saxby is our auction coordinator and she will be your contact.
It is very important to all of us working on this event that 100% of what is raised goes to the people of Nepal. Your giving goes four ways:

1) Tents to Nepal – immediate shelter relief
2) Karuna-Shechen – food and medical relief efforts by the monks
3) Access Nepal – mental health work

4) Funds taken directly to people and groups on the ground
In the case of number four, Naren (from Crystal Castle) and myself will take funds raised to Nepal (traveling at our own expense) in order to assess where the money is most needed, and to ensure the funds get to people on the ground.
I hope you will join our effort, without a doubt your participation will make our auction a massive success! On behalf of the people of Nepal we would like to thank you for your donation. Your generosity, kindness and love will go a long way to help rebuild the lives of those who have been affected by this devastating earthquake.

Please be sure and share Rebuild Nepal with your networks and help us do what we can for the people of Nepal. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to call.”
https://www.mycause.com.au/page/103477/rebuildnepal
<https://www.tonichilds.com/>

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