21st September is World Peace Day, or the International Day of Peace. It was established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly, and, in 2001, the General Assembly designated the Day as a period of non-violence and cease-fire. 
 
This year’s Peace Day celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the theme is The Right to Peace. 
 
 
Image: Paper Cranes, Children’s Peace Memorial, Hiroshima 
Peace Day is celebrated in a range of different ways across the world, for example: Minute of silence at 12 noon (all timezones), peace education events, Intercultural and interfaith dialogues, community gatherings , concerts and festivals, marches, parades and flag ceremonies and engaging youth in peace-building activities. 
 
There are lots of ways to get involved with Peace Day. 
 
Peace One Day is a charity that aims to institutionalise Peace Day 21 September, making it a day that is self-sustaining, an annual day of global unity and a day of intercultural cooperation on a scale that humanity has never known. 
 
One of their global initiatives is “Set for Peace”, a call to action to DJs and musicians worldwide. The action is simple: Dedicate a set of music to Peace Day – September 18-21: 
 
One Day One Choir is a global peace initiative which uses the power of singing together to unite people around the world on Peace Day. It was launched in 2014 as a response to growing unrest and conflict in the world. Since then, more than a million people from all walks of life and a wide range of different singing groups have joined in to sing in more than 50 countries. One Day One Choir are keen for people to get involved, you can register at http://www.onedayonechoir.org/singing-for-schools 
 
One Day One Choir also offers a list of recommended resources on their website. These include, Out of Ark’s free song, Sing a Song in Unison. 
 
 
Sing Up have put together resources as well, available at https://www.singup.org/world-peace-day/ 
 
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before" Leonard Bernstein 
 
Here are some of our recommendations for songs for Peace Day: 
 
Imagine by John Lennon: 
 
Shalom Chaverim, a Traditional Jewish Song: 
 
Let there be Peace on Earth, Jill Jackson Miller: 
 
Venus, Bringer of Peace from the Planets Suite by Gustav Holst: 
 
Peace, Horace Silver: 
 
War Requiem, Benjamin Britten. Commissioned to inaugurate the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral in 1962, the soloists in the ‘Libera Me’ were intended to be a Russian soprano, an English tenor and a German baritone: 
 
We Shall Overcome, Pete Seeger: 
 
Blowin’ in the Wind, Bob Dylan: 
 
Adagio for Strings, Samuel Barber (from the String Quartet Op. 11, now integrated as an expression of grief in times of conflict, synonymous with incidents including September 11, the death of John F Kennedy, the Manchester Arena bombing and many others): 
 
And in its original version: 
 
War and Peace, Sergey Prokofiev: 
 
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