Violinist Miri Ben-Ari to Perform at Nobel Prize Event

Musician will be featured at Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates

By Greg Cahill posted October 02, 2014

miri-ben-ari

Grammy Award-winning violinist and producer Miri Ben-Ari will headline a special invitation-only concert opening the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at Cape Town City Hall in South Africa on October 13.

This year’s theme is “Peace. Living It! In honour of Nelson Mandela.”  The summit will host such Nobel Peace Prize laureates as Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mikhail Gorbachev, President Frederik Willem De Klerk, the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, and the Chief Albert Luthuli Foundation.

Ben-Ari has donated her performance "in honor of peace, balance and sustainability." She has invited special guests Cape Town Philharmonic Youth Orchestra (Brandon Phillips, music director) and the University of the Western Cape (UWC) Creative Arts Choir (Sibusiso Njeza, choir conductor) to join the performance of her new song "Freedom,” featuring Nelson Mandela, which was selected as the official summit theme song in honor of Mandela.

The Gedenk “culture for tolerance" Movement, is documenting this special event by co-sponsoring a music video for "Freedom" to be filmed in Cape Town with Ben-Ari and directed by Kweku Mandela, Mandela’s grandson.

“It is a great honor to headline the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates and promote its message with my music,” Ben-Ari wrote. “I am excited to partner with EMMA for Peace, the City of Cape Town and the Mandela Rhodes Foundation in honor of Peace, Balance and Sustainability. I’m looking forward to performing my song ‘Freedom’ and collaborating with Kweku Mandela. Music has the power of bringing people together where otherwise it wouldn't be possible. It can cross bridges and create a global understanding.”

Ben-Ari is a classically-trained violinist known for her fusion of classical soul and dance music, including hip-hop. She has worked with Kanye West, Jay Z, Alicia Keys, Wynton Marsalis, Donna Summer, and Armin Van Buuren.

Originally from Israel, Ben-Ari is a featured blogger for the Huffington Post and the CEO of the nonprofit Gedenk, which promotes tolerance to safeguard a peaceful society based on lessons learned from the Holocaust and other genocides. Ben-Ari has been the face of many promotional campaigns, including Reebok’s “I Am What I Am” global print and TV advertisements, Vodafone, Pepsi, Coca-Cola and now Harman Kardon.

She was honored as an "Apollo Legend" by the Apollo theater in New York City, "International Jewish Woman To Watch of 2007 Award,” “2008 Israel Film Festival Visionary Award,” the American Society for Yad Vashem Award, "Young & Powerful for Obama” 2011 Rising Star Award, the “Martin Luther King Award” from Israeli President Shimon Peres and the “2012 Big Vision Awards.” In 2011, Ben-Ari was invited by First Lady Michelle Obama to the White House for a special performance and to be honored as a “Remarkable Woman” and in 2012, Ben-Ari was invited to perform for President Barack Obama.

Ben-Ari spent much of 2013 in the studio recording her comeback album in 2014.

She is currently the Goodwill Ambassador of Music for the United Nations Association of Brasil.


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