A Powerful and Fun Show
The 14th Annual Daniel Pearl Music Day
This Sunday, October 18th
7:30 pm. near Boston
“Daniel Pearl would have turned 63 today”. As in every year, that was my first thought on October 10th. It happens to also be my birthday, I am just a couple of years younger than him.
Since 2012, I have celebrated my birthday hosting a Daniel Pearl World Music Days concert. I only skipped 2020. I have been asked why I continued doing it even after the official event stopped existing.
So here are my reasons:
(1) At the root of this concert series (the latest count released by the Daniel Pearl Foundation a few years ago had over 14,000 concerts in 140 countries) is the idea that no matter the pain, we NEED to connect and try to find a point of contact with those who are different than us. And now, more than ever, we need to keep the hope that there can be at least one point of contact with even our worst enemies. The alternative is hopelessness and mutual distruction.
(2) The week Daniel Pearl was kidnapped, we had a good friend staying with us. He worked at The Wall Street Journal and was a friend of Daniel. We both had children under a year old. Being there, these two families with young children, and thinking about Marianne Pearl, alone in a foreign city, pregnant and not knowing about her husband’s fate deeply impacted me.
(3) My great uncle Giorgio was a reporter. He covered the Soviet invasion of Hungary (was detained by the Russians for a couple of days) and the Algerian Independence war. A second idea that is celebrated and supported by this concert is that we need to protect reporters because a free press is key to democracy. This was a concept that was passed on to my by Giorgio and that is really important for me.
(4) Last but certainly not least, these concerts are fun! We have a KICK ASS HOUSE band and many amazing singers, and we will play an incredibly diverse set of covers to bring to life the idea of music as a connection.
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