The World Festival of Sacred Music is a 16-day celebration of the rich sacred-music traditions of the people of Los Angeles, with musical events produced in venues ranging from the city’s major stages to intimate places of worship.

Recognizing music as an expression of humanity’s most profound aspirations and as a way to transcend borders of all kinds — linguistic, national, cultural, ideological, racial and religious — the 2002 festival is the result of an outpouring of interest and enthusiasm from community partners and artists who participated in 1999’s World Festival of Sacred Music — The Americas, initiated by the Dalai Lama.

This second World Festival of Sacred Music, a 45-event, multidisciplinary festival dedicated to building a free, participatory, sustainable and peaceful society, will take place throughout Los Angeles on Sept. 14–29. Continuing in their commitment from 1999, the UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, EarthWays Foundation and the Foundation for World Arts are producing the festival.

Music has always provided a source of spiritual nourishment — and sacred music in particular has long been a catalyst to bring people together. Broadly defining “sacred� to encompass a wide range of traditional and modern music, dance, and other forms of artistic expression, the World Festival of Sacred Music is founded on the belief that sacred music has the ability to bring forth the shared values on which humanity’s future depends: peace, understanding and respect for all living things.

Developed through broad-based community participation, this intercultural, interfaith, interethnic collaborative effort has the combined strength of a wide range of regional/national religious, community, civic and arts organizations.

Festival events and activities include:

· Opening Concert, Sept. 14: The festival opens at UCLA’s magnificent Royce Hall with a special concert featuring the wisdom and depth inherent in the living heritage of sacred music. Included among the performers are Sufi Qawwali singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, the Drepung Loseling Monks and the Luckman Jazz Orchestra performing liturgical works of Duke Ellington.

· Sacred Music in Sacred Places/Public Spaces Concerts, Sept. 14–29: Korean and Middle Eastern dance, American gospel and Sufi singing; traditional Indian and Balinese dance and music; Jewish cantorial prayers; Native American flute songs; sacred jazz; Japanese gagaku; and a wide array of other traditions come together in the Sacred Music in Sacred Places/Public Spaces concert series, a cross-cultural sharing of traditions in neighborhood sites throughout Southern California, including community and arts centers, temples, churches, sacred ground, and the region’s professional performing arts venues.

· Sacred World Concert, Sept. 29: To be held at the historic Greek Theater, the closing concert will bring together festival participants, performers and the public in a final event that celebrates the beauty of sacred music from around the globe. The closing concert mirrors the diversity of events and the spirit of mutual cooperation and respect that is the core ethos of the entire festival. Included among the performers are the Whirling Dervishes of Damascus, the Afro-Cuban rhythms of Mickey Hart & Bembe Orisha, and the Balinese gamelan ensemble, Cudamani.

· Urban Prayer Flag Initiative: Throughout time people have used flags to mark special sites, to signal an event and to send messages across distances. In Tibet, flags provide continuous blessings and positive energy. The festival will work with community groups throughout the region to create prayer flags that express aspirations for the future and wisdom-truths from a wide range of sources and traditions. Prayer flags will be displayed at performance sites to invoke the ideals of the festival.

· Local Heroes: A thread woven throughout the festival, Local Heroes will recognize, honor and celebrate the heroes in our community. Nominated by festival participants and organizers, a hero may be a parent, teacher, neighbor, community leader, friend — anyone working to inspire and nurture future generations, promote understanding and tolerance, preserve our environment, build community, or find ways to improve the lives and environment in Los Angeles.

The World Festival of Sacred Music is not a commercial venture, nor does it promote or endorse any political or religious agenda. Rather, the festival provides a rare opportunity for people to come together to share cultural traditions and to contemplate the spiritual, ethical and ecological questions of our times. Indeed, inherent in the festival is a powerful ethos intended to investigate issues of tolerance and diversity within our complex, urban environment.

Additionally, the festival is designed to:
· Present new ways for the public to appreciate and understand rich and diverse sacred-music traditions.

· Provide a citywide celebration that encourages residents and visitors to cross boundaries of religion, class, culture, race, language and generation to explore the region and its many communities anew.

· Engage diverse cultural and faith-based communities in a collaborative dialogue as they plan and implement the festival.

· Create opportunities for artists and tradition-bearers in the community to work together in new and productive alliances.

· Foster deep and conscious reflection of our past as we set our sights on the world to be built for present and future generations.

A largely volunteer effort, based on the intention to use the arts-festival model to build genuine community cooperation and understanding, the World Festival of Sacred Music is made possible by the commitment of thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations, including Music Committee members as follows: Johnny Mori, Japanese American Cultural and Community Center; Derek Nakamoto, Bindu Records; Colin Quigley, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures; Yatrika Shah-Rais, Skirball Cultural Center and Museum; Dale Franzen, Madison Site Theater; David Powell, The Music Bridge; Kelly Salloum, UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology; and Betto Arcos, KPFK Radio.

As in 1999’s successful effort, Professor Judy Mitoma, director of UCLA’s Center for Intercultural Performance, will act as director and provide the artistic and administrative leadership for the festival. Also returning in key positions are Jodie Evans of the Foundation for World Arts, whose expertise in fundraising was invaluable to the festival in 1999; and Andrew Beath, president of the EarthWays Foundation, whose work on environmental issues builds common ground that guides the festival.

World Festival of Sacred Music is a project of UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, an international resource for cultural exchange, creative collaboration, publications and film/video documentation dedicated to promoting understanding and appreciation across cultures; EarthWays Foundation, a nonprofit organization that serves as a catalyst for personal understanding and community involvement in local and global social action to benefit the environment and the human condition; and Foundation for World Arts, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of cultural equity and diversity in the arts through community engagement.

The World Festival of Sacred Music has received funding from the Foundation for World Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, James Irvine Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Threshold Foundation, as well as generous donations from individuals.

For more information about the festival and opportunities to volunteer and/or contribute to its development, please contact World Festival of Sacred Music, c/o UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, A129 Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Box 957173, Los Angeles CA 90095-7173. Phone: (310) 825-0507, fax: (310) 825-5152, e-mail: info@festivalofsacredmusic.org