Dear Members and Friends of Sa Taronja,
 
thank you for your patience over the last couple of months.  We are now planning some events for the July-August season that we hope will make the wait worthwhile.  We will be announcing the programme at the end of this month.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of changes and additions to the schedule of courses at Sa Taronja, and a musical event later this month.

It will be an evening in homage to our dear friend, musician, cook and tireless volunteer Arthur Vaughn who left us so suddenly on May 11th.  There is another concert planned on Saturday, August, 13, with participation of his musician friends from Germany and England but that is still a long way off, so on Saturday June 25th we pay our respects to this loyal friend of Sa Taronja with a concert, a DJ, a show of art and crafts and a Jumble Sale,  with the object of raising some funds to go towards the expenses of his funeral and the maintenance of his animals until they are adopted.  We hope you can come. Details below.

We are missing our friend

Arthur Vaughn Richards (✝ May 11, 2016)

Arthur Vaughn Richards, or “Island Monkey” as he called himself, was a wonderful person.  This small man with the big heart who lived deep in the woods between Port Andratx and S’Arracó was known and loved by many of us.  His house was always open to anyone in need, anyone wanting to share joy or sorrow, or just to hang out with Arthur, listen to music, surrounded by the animals he loved.

On May 11 Arthur left us for ever.  We remember him as a sensitive, generous, deeply caring friend with the great heart of someone who accepted and respected every living being for what he/she/was.
Arthur expressed himself best through his music. Many of the songs that this highly talented musician left us are full of references – sometimes ironic – to the kind of problems a sensitive artist like himself had with his surroundings and with human relationships.  Songs which, like “Monkey from Africa” written a few years back, give us unforgiving glimpses into his biography and his sometimes tortured life, “dark brown outside, white inside” which sometimes met with incomprehension.  But that too was a part of him: the dark-skinned man, struggling with his complexes in the white world. In “Breaking out of Sadness” he speaks of wrestling with his pain and inner loneliness, and the all-encompassing longing for love.

What is clear is that he has gone before his allotted time.  That he – and his body – did not want to continue the struggle, we must accept, like it or not. Arthur carried, apart from his inexhaustible belief in love, a lot of painful baggage within him, spiritual as well as corporal; despite being torn up inside, body and soul, in recent times he was still full of plans even though part of him could not and would not go on.  Friends and fellow musicians were about go into the studio with him to record old and new compositions. They will have to change their plans.

This summer, probably in August, some of his friends will get together in Mallorca to hold a concert in his honour and present a selection of his best songs.  Arthur died full of inner riches, but he lived in poverty.  So the concert, which will celebrate the memory of a man who loved to sing, to party and to dance, will also serve as a fundraiser to help cover the funeral expenses and costs of dealing with his estate… which includes his four-legged friends. 

We miss you, Arthur, old friend!  - You live on, in our memories and in your music.

Jan Kobrzinowski, in May, 2016