Grammy winning producer/engineer Mark Johnson and his Playing For Change team travelled for a decade with a single minded passion to connect the world though music. Their ambitious journey took them from America to post-apartheid South Africa, through the ancient sites of the Middle East, to the remote beauty of the Himalayas and Europe. Using innovative mobile technology, the PFC crew filmed and recorded more than 100 musicians, largely outdoors, in parks, plazas and promenades, in doorways, on cobblestone streets and amid hilly pueblos. Each captured performance created a new mix in which essentially the artists are all performing together, albeit hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Some of the magical moments include Ireland’s Omagh Community Youth Choir singing “Love Rescue Me,” written by U2 and Bob Dylan, and American street musicians Roger Ridley and Grandpa Elliott harmonizing with Clarence Bekker from the Netherlands amid an assembly of artists from Russia, Spain, Venezuela, France and Brazil on the Ben E. King/Leiber & Stoller classic “Stand By Me,” the video of which has already become a YouTube sensation with over 13 million views. Seeing great need in many of the locations where the crew filmed and recorded inspired PFC to establish the Playing for Change Foundation, which provides resources – including facilities, technology, musical instruments and education – to musicians and their communities. Completed in January 2009 is the Foundation’s first project, the Ntonga Music School in South Africa. Its second, the Mehlo Arts Center in Johannesburg, will open later in 2009.