'Sound of Peace - A Tribute to Mother Earth'
LJM Live-Streaming Concert on Mother's Day to Heal with Music of Love

Organized by parties with the Ling Jiou Mountain (LJM) Buddhist Society of New York in the lead, the announced concert “The Sound of Peace - A Tribute to Mother Earth” will start live-streaming at 9:30 A.M. (EDT) on Mother's Day on May 10 (9:30 P.M. in Taiwan). The event will be moved to on-line due to COVID-19. A quiet revolution by the young of the 21st century will be ignited with music, and here is calling out to all to tune in to it.

Calamities have been following one another in recent years, and COVID-19 is yet another challenge to humankind to overcome. It falls upon the shoulders of the world's religions to inspire more people to care about our planet amidst the crises of climate change and the pandemic.

Dharma Master Hsin Tao, Founding Abbot of the LJM, has been promoting the “Loving the Earth, Loving Peace” campaign long-term. The University for Life & Peace is being created in Myanmar to unite spirituality and technology to heal the Earth, while seeds of peace for the global ecology will be cultivated on the fertile land where all things co-exist in symbiosis. On the occasion of World Earth Day 2020 and at the invitation of the Parliament of the World's Religions (PoWR), Master Hsin Tao was featured in a video of prayers for the world’s Earth Day 2020. The six-syllable Sanskrit mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” is seen chanted in a loop and the prayers seek to help revitalize the Earth while keeping people safe and peaceful.

Venerable Guang Guo Shih, Chief Executive of the LJM Chan Space New York, points to the wish that the online concert aims to function as a wake-up call for people to open up to spirituality and compassion by starting from the Heart within, and the music will hopefully serve as a humble example for other initiatives to mobilize in the general direction of “Love & Peace in Action for Sustainability”. There are plans for a “Workshop on Life Education & Sustainability” to further promote the long-term campaign of “Loving the Earth, Loving Peace”.

The concert was originally a musical prayer for blessings for the Earth, and the orchestrated effort is spearheaded by the LJM Buddhist Studies Society New York, with the NGO “Global Family for Love & Peace” (GFLP), the future University for Life & Peace Myanmar, the Chan Space New York, and the New York School for Strings, all doing their fair share of contributions to the event that now has moved to online, and all committed to environmental protection and the movement of tranquility.

The concert was originally slated to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day on April 22 and to take place at the Auditorium of the Stuyvesant High School in New York City. Because of the rampaging COVID-19 and global casualties still on the rise, the event was moved online with a live-streaming broadcast on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 10.

Curator of the concert Lu Jih-Lan invited cello faculty Alex Croxton, who teaches at the Mannes School of Music, the Special Music School, and the School for Strings, to be the conductor, with 8 students of cello and violin in the ensemble, and on the piano is Marina Iwao, a graduate from the Juilliard Academy of Music. The program will feature the popular score of “Here Comes the Sun” and sobering soul music performance of Bach Concerto for 2 violins in D minor, Bach Suite no.6 Sarabande, and the like.

Group rehearsals became impossible because of the pandemic and the musicians all had to practice at home to the pre-recorded piano scores for queues with ear-phones on. To follow progress, they would regularly come together online to rehearse for the ensemble with the teachers and conductor. The results show that we are getting ready for a wonderful musical celebration of Mother's Day!

The link below takes you to a trailer of the upcoming online concert "The Sound of Peace - A Tribute to Mother Earth". Click the teaser on and enjoy the prelude - literally.
https://youtu.be/GcRkx6iVdiY

► Live Streaming

The link https://youtu.be/4KSN-2sPMcI is for a video that features Dharma Master Hsin Tao, the LJM Founding Abbot, in a praying session for Climate Change on Earth Day 2020. It is a production by the invitation of the PoWR.