Background

Listen for Life was honored when UN-related organizations in Geneva invited us to organize music-based events around the globe to raise awareness of the UN Millennium Development Goals, as well as celebrate UN International Day of Peace ("Peace Day"). In the process of organizing and producing our initial events in 2010, we learned, first of all, that the word "Peace" means very different things to different people! There is no one definition for the term that all cultures, societies or even individuals would agree with, and no one way to determine who "lives in peace" or who doesn't have that opportunity, because the experience goes far deeper than absence of violence or conflict or peace of mind. But we also learned that regardless of the meaning or definition, music of all cultures and genres can most definitely open the hearts of all and provide an increased opportunity to experience peace!

Goals

The UN General Assembly approved the idea of having a worldwide Peace Day on September 21st of each year, back in 1982. Here is a brief history of the idea, the resolution and its goals. Peace Day events, large and small, are now held in over 125 countries around the world, and they are all organized by ordinary citizens and volunteer groups. Events are created not only to provide central gathering points where all demographics can come together for a shared experience on that day, but also as a year-round focal point and project that will regularly bring together individuals, groups, organizations and demographics within a community, for the planning process itself and the growing sense of unity that this engenders. 

For this important community-building process, the shared emotional language of music seems an ideal tool throughout the year, as well as being a natural focus of any Peace Day events being planned for this coming September 21 in your own neighborhood.
There are many types of activities that can bring people together on Peace Day – sporting/athletic contests, live theatre, speeches, street fairs, nondenominational church services, multicultural food events, poetry contests, and so on. If you or your neighborhood choose one of those activities, that’s all great. But if you choose to do something around the universal language of music, then that’s where we can help you. We can bring your event under our Listen for Life banner and promote it through our very popular website, and we can help you with any advice or organizing support you need. 

For complete, detailed, step-by-step instructions and a template/guideline for planning and creating Peace Day events through music, click here

During September 2010, Listen for Life musicians performed Peace Day-related events in the UK, Bosnia, Croatia, and USA!

In addition, for several months leading up to Peace Day the Oakland, California volunteer team of Listen for Life worked hard to plan that city’s first major celebration of Peace Day, using music to unify its citizens and put the city on the map for positive reasons that day!

Peace Day 2010 for Oakland CA was deemed a major success for Listen for Life (and for raising awareness of peace through music!) by all in attendance:

•    We ended up featuring a total of 120 internationally renowned musicians from 72 different cultures (all based in the Bay Area), sharing their gifts for free in seven (donated) venues across the city, from 12 noon till 10pm.
•    The Mayor of Oakland issued a formal proclamation for the city to honor Peace Day each year, involving as many residents and demographics as possible (PDF version of the proclamation).
•    The Oakland A’s baseball team dedicated their night game on that date to Peace Day and Listen for Life, and one of our younger Listen for Life musicians, opera prodigy Ricky Garcia (from Latin America) sang the Star Spangled Banner at the start of the game in the Oakland Coliseum. (Here is Ricky's YouTube audition video with his awesome rendition of the song).
•    Our music events in each venue combined musicians and music genres across all continents and styles, and the musicians who participated are still sending us notes asking if they can do this again. They treasured the chance to make new friendships amongst other musicians, find new audiences/fans, and create new performing groups that combine some of the individual acts we introduced to each other.

The Challenge:
Someone once said “if anything is worth doing, it will encounter the most obstacles”. In starting any new festival or event for a city, the hardest part (but sometimes the most fun!) is in spreading the word, door to door, neighbor to neighbor, including all residents, businesses, school students, and demographics. We worked at it very hard, but we would have liked to have had even larger turn-outs at each venue than we did!