Twenty-five years of music for peace.
Songs written with poets in more than twenty countries — Made in Hawaiʻi, given to the world.
Juries in Lucknow, a United Nations environment campaign, a state legislature in Hawaiʻi, and a letter from Tokyo. Every entry below is dated and attributable.
Festival awards
Presented at the World Peace Film and Music Festival, organised by the World Movement for Global Democracy and held alongside the World Judiciary Summit — the International Conference of Chief Justices of the World, in Lucknow, India.
Commendable Effort — Circle of Peace
Awarded to the album produced and directed by M. I. Behleem for StarLight Harmony Music Inc., USA, on the recommendation of a seven-member international jury, before delegates from sixty countries.
2nd Festival · 7–10 December 2007
Special Mention — Peace from East
Recognition for the peace anthem later featured in the United Kingdom Department for Education and Skills anti-bullying film Making the Difference.
2nd Festival · Lucknow
Special Mention — World Prayer for Peace 2008
Presented before more than two hundred delegates from eighty-five countries, for a recording gathering 187 artists from 42 countries, coordinated entirely by email.
3rd Festival · 12–15 December 2008
Recognition — Spiritual Warrior and Celestial Lullabies
Two relaxation albums recognised at the same festival.
3rd Festival · Lucknow
Titles and ambassadorships
Universal Peace Ambassador
Conferred by Jean Paul Nouchi, President Founder, Universal Ambassador Peace Circle and Universal Peace Embassy, Geneva.
Love Ambassador
Conferred by Harold W. Becker of The Love Foundation, Tampa, Florida — among the first group named to the programme, alongside Pete Seeger, Václav Havel and Ram Dass.
WEL Goodwill Ambassador of Joy for Elders
Conferred by Kathy J. Ward, Universal Council of WEL, World Elder Land.
United Nations Environment Programme
Plant More Trees was written with lyrics by Dr. T. Ashok Chakravarthy of India in direct support of UNEP’s Billion Tree Campaign, and included in the campaign’s audiovisual materials.
It was then selected for the French compilation Un arbre pour la paix, un arbre pour la terre, distributed free with a classroom kit to more than a thousand schoolchildren. On 20 March 2008 — the first day of spring — several schools planted four thousand trees in a burned-out area and sang the song at the ceremony.
France · 20 March 2008
Certificate of Appreciation
Awarded by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the “Expressions of Peace” contest, literary arts category.
Presented at the inaugural Peace Day Hawaiʻi ceremony marking the United Nations International Day of Peace, and signed by State Senator Carol Fukunaga and Vice Speaker Jon Riki Karamatsu of the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives.
21 September 2007 · Honolulu
A letter from Tokyo
The song Great Hopes sets a poem by Daisaku Ikeda — Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder, poet, and founding president of Soka Gakkai International.
In March 2005, SGI wrote from Tokyo to convey that President Ikeda had received the song, deeply appreciated the time spent composing music for his poetry, and had sent a gift in thanks.
March 2005 · Tokyo
Commissioned works
Making the Difference
Music composition for the anti-bullying resource film commissioned by the United Kingdom Department for Education and Skills, directed by Andy Hickson and produced by Actionwork Films, featuring the song Peace from East. Launched at the National Film Theatre, London, and used since in UK schools.
London · 23 November 2005
Little Boy: The Peace Play
Original music for the theatre-dance production by YS Kids Playhouse, directed by John Fleming, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, staged with the Dayton International Peace Museum, the Shirley-Jones Gallery and the Dayton Playhouse. Each performance was accompanied by candle lighting, the folding of origami cranes, and a wish tree for written peace messages.
Yellow Springs & Dayton, Ohio · 5–9 August 2005
Press and broadcast
SGI Quarterly No. 37
Profiled by Dr. Olivier Urbain in “Music and the TRANSCEND Method,” an issue devoted to music as a force for peace, as one of five artists of the T:AP Music Project. The article described Muppet theatre performances in fifty schools around Karachi — story, characters, soundtrack and puppets all his own work — and a nursery rhyme album made with children aged five to ten.
July 2004 · Tokyo
The Hindu — “Pakistani touch for peace poem”
National coverage in India of the musical setting of The World Needs Peace by T. Ashok Chakravarthy, released for World Peace Day.
18 September 2006 · India
Radio Transilvania — Sighetu Marmației
First broadcast of May Peace Prevail on Earth at 10:24 in the morning, played regularly since. The song’s origin — composed from a poem sent by Tatomir Ion-Marius in October 2006 — was carried as a news story in the local press.
7 May 2008 · Romania
Performances and festivals
A Call to Peace Festival
Première of May Peace Prevail on Earth at the World Peace Sanctuary, Amenia, New York, organised by the World Peace Prayer Society. Lyrics by Tatomir Ion-Marius of Romania.
Humanitarian Art
Performed at an Oxford University peace conference by the artist Lida Sherafatmand, whose words and inspiration set the composition.
Peoples Music Network
A remix of Marching in the Light of God created for the Winter Gathering in New York.
Dentelle de Mirages
Poetry in four languages in central Brussels, closing with the CD Salam, Nenuphar Light. Hosted by Liza Leyla.
