It was a long concert, but the organiizers wanted to be as inclusive as possible. Invocations from the Islamic, Christian, and Hindu traditions opened the concert and set the tone for the evening. We saw a young musicians collective of underserved youths perform right before an Indian sarangi master with a local ensemble. Carribean music next to Pakistani music. Personally, we didn’t last through the later Latino performance.

The audience was a loose assembly of Austinites united in their love for peace. There were the very young, the not so young and a sprinkling of young-at-heart older people like us. Did we create peace on that evening? Possibly not in the larger sense. But the peace and fellowship of those present was palpable. Ethopian and Latino food sustained those who came for the whole evening.

After a summer of drought the whole day had been blessed with heavy rain. Even though this may have kept some from venturing out, the rain stopped right at opening time. In the greater scheme of things the rain was another peace blessing.

Last year we tried our hand at creating an event for the International Day of Peace. This year we are happy to co-sponsor a peace concert in Austin, which is organized by the Amala Foundation and Wobeon. It will be an evening of international, intercultural music. Peace can only be achieved when we respect each other and get to know each other. What better way than to listen to each other’s music? We cannot bring the whole world together, but we can start in our own town, which hapens to be quite multicultural. But often we find that musical taste, like church, remains segregated. Latinos flock to Latino music, blacks listen to music from the black traditions and whites have their own  choices. Immigrants like us go and taste the music and the food from various cultures, because our childhood cultures are not strongly represented. By doing so we have discovered new styles of music and have taken a liking to some of them. That is what intercultural understanding is all about. Come and join us.

For details go to http://www.amalafoundation.org/concert-for-peace/