Gavin Friday, ©Neil Gavin |
Maurice Seezer, ©Neil Gavin |
Bono, ©Perry Ogden |
Bono
Bono is the lead singer of the Irish rock group U2. U2 released their first record in April 1980, and have since sold over 100 million albums worldwide, winning 14 Grammy music awards in the US and 6 Brit Awards in the UK along the way. Last year, U2 were awarded MTV's Lifetime Achievement Award and honoured at the Brits for an Outstanding Contribution to Music. U2 have supported Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and the Burma Action Campaign.
Since 1998, Bono has been an active supporter of the international Jubilee 2000 Drop The Debt campaign, which campaigned for the unpayable debts of the worlds' poorest countries to be written off to mark the new millennium. He has used his fame to get the media to pay attention to debt, poverty and AIDS in Africa, and to get access to the world's most powerful politicians.
He has spent the past three years lobbying international politicians, and the IMF and World Bank, and met many world leaders including George Bush, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Thabo Mbeki. In 1999, he went to Rome to join forces with Pope John Paul II to persuade the Group of Eight richest nations (G8) to increase debt cancellation. In 2000, he joined Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo to present the world's largest petition (24 million signatures) to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling for much more debt cancellation for the poorest countries. In 2001, Bono helped bring together American music artists including Destiny's Child and Puff Daddy to record Marvin Gaye's What's Going On? to raise money and awareness to fight AIDS in Africa. This year, he helped lobby for an increase in overseas aid to Africa, which resulted in a promise from President Bush to add an extra $5billion a year for poor countries. Bono also spent two weeks on a highly-publicized trip with US Treasury-Secretary Paul O'Neill to Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Ethiopia to make the case for more money for AIDS and fighting poverty.
Bono, along with Live Aid's Sir Bob Geldof, has set up a network called DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa) which targets rich governments to increase resources and improve their policies towards African countries.
Bono lives in Dublin, Ireland, with his wife and four children.
Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer
Gavin Friday was born in Dublin in October 1959. He survived a Christian Brothers education to become a singer, composer and painter. He was the founder member of the legendary avant-garde punk group The Virgin Prunes. His debut exhibition of paintings 'I Didn't Come Up The Liffey in a Bubble' was in 1988. Since 1985 he has composed and performed with his longtime musical partner Maurice Seezer, who was born in Dublin in September 1960. He studied piano, cello and harmony in the Royal Academy of Music and didn’t like punk. He went to Trinity College Dublin to study the bible, played piano in bars, conducted the College singers until he met Gavin through a mutual friend.
Friday-Seezer albums include 'Each man kills the thing he loves', 'Adam'n'Eve', and 'Shag Tobacco'. Film Scores include 'In the Name of the Father', 'The Boxer',
Disco Pigs, and contributions to film scores include 'Short Cuts', 'Romeo and Juliet' and 'Moulin Rouge'. Stage Shows include the Kurt Weill Extravaganza.... 'ICH LIEBE DICHT'. Forthcoming releases include the score to Jim Sheridan's 'In America'. Friday-Seezer are currently writing/recording for an album of original songs.
www.gavinfriday.com
Peter and The Wolf Book and CD boxed set
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