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| Saturday, March 11, 2000 |
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IF music be the food of love, play on. Now His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, is taking Shakespeare’s famous line a step further and giving it a religious dimension by launching the World Festival of Sacred Music.
So, while each continent will predominantly present the music of the region, the Global Festival at Bangalore will have the best from all the five continents in addition to the sacred music from India. The home of the festival revolves around the process of bringing together people from different regional, religious and cultural backgrounds through the medium of music. Performances will represent the world’s heritage of scared music. Speaking to newspersons in Delhi, the Dalai Lama said: "The idea is to energise the basic human qualities such as compassion and under-standing and to invoke the forces of peace and harmony among peoples of the world in the new millennium." |
| Energy will be drawn from the songs of the
shamans of the world’s northern region, to the
earth-worshipping sounds of the Australian aborigines;
from the quirats of Islam and the flutes of the Sufis to
the mantras of Asian Buddhists; from the Bhakti
music of India to Christian Gregorian chants; from the
holy drums of Africa to the gospel music of African
Amercians. The chanting of Tibetan monks and nuns will
also be a special feature of the festival. The list of patrons of the world festival is as impressive as it is indicative of the importance of this global event. The personal involvement of the Dalai Lama, along with the patronage of the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin, Swami Chidananda, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pandit Ravi Shankar, Madame Danielle Mitterand, President Vaclav Havel and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, further underscores the global message of the festival. Soon after announcing the launch of the festival, the Dalai Lama invited sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan to play a musical piece he had specially composed for the occasion. The piece was dedicated to the memory of the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin, the eminent violinist who passed away earlier this year. "Among the many forms in which the human spirit has tried to express its innermost yearnings and perceptions, music is perhaps the most universal. It symbolises humanity’s search for harmony, with oneself and with others, with nature, and with the spiritual and the sacred within us and around us," says the Dalai Lama. It is in this spirit that the world festival is being initiated as a coming together of people of diverse backgrounds and traditions, to share and nurture the profoundest expression of the human spirit that is part of each one of us. The logo for the festival is based on the concept of Nada — the first stirring within which heralds the beginning of the evolutionary process and from which radiate energy and matter. "Nada is not only the audible sound but also the sound of silence, the healing silence of compassion and peace. That is why music has such profound influence not only on man, but also on animals and plants," says the Dalai Lama. He says that it occurred to him that the World Festival of sacred Music would be a unique and effective way of ushering in the new millennium and spreading the message of universal responsibility and universal harmony and peace between man and nature. Bringing together the spiritually enriched music of people from different regional, cultural and religious backgrounds and exposing the common man, specially the youth, to such elevating music "is bound to have a subtle and profound influence on the minds of people, moving them towards equanimity and harmony." The festival encompasses a whole range of musical forms from the informal, ritual and folk traditions of indigenous peoples to the world’s major musical traditions and contemporary expressions. It won’t limit itself to the styles and modes used by religious denominations. It would be a hard task to choose a limited number of items for the global festival from the limitless ocean of sacred music. Sequencing of items and mixing the Indian component with the items of music from the five continents, in a manner that one items blends smoothly with the next one, would pose yet another challenge. The festival will be non-political in nature and will not be commercial. It has been conceived as an expression of the deepest reflections of mankind down the ages, with a view to inspire all of us to create a saner and better world. Aptly summing up the spirit behind the festival, the Dalai Lama says: "There is something in music that transcends and unites. This is evident in the sacred music of every community — music that expresses the universal yearning that is shared by people all over the globe." — NF |
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The unique-ness of this event lies in the
fact that the festival will be held in all five
continents. Having begun in October 1999 in Los Angeles,
the festival will travel to Dresden, Capetown, Sydney,
Hiroshima and culminate in a grand finale on April 9,
2000, at Bangalore in India.