MUSIC AS POST-CONFLICT PEACE-BUILDING
an afternoon with
LAURA HASSLER
Founder & Director, Musicians Without Borders
Saturday, 26 March 2022, 3PM-4:30PM US ET
Via Zoom. Free and open to all. Registration required.
Laura Hassler, Founder and Director of Musicians Without Borders, will share with us her work with music as a medium for peacebuilding and social change. In collaboration with local musicians and organizations, Musicians Without Borders (est. 1999) brings music to people and places affected by war, armed conflict, and displacement. The organization’s current programs include Al-Musiqa Tajm’ana in Jordan, Armonia Cuscatleca and Soy Musica in El Salvador, Bara’em Ghirass in Palestine, Rock School Programs in the Western Balkans, and Rwanda Youth Music in Rwanda.
ABOUT LAURA HASSLER
Laura Hassler grew up in a multicultural, artistic community in New York, a child of two professionals in the international peace and nonviolence movement. Active from an early age in US civil rights and peace movements, she studied sociology and anthropology at Swarthmore College, combining academics with activism and music.
During the 1970s she worked for the Friends (Quaker) Peace Committee and the Committee of Responsibility on Vietnam in Philadelphia; for the US Fellowship of Reconciliation in New York; and for Thich Nhat Hanh’s Vietnamese Buddhist Peace Delegation in Paris and in the US.
She moved to the Netherlands in 1977, where she developed a career as a musician, linking music to social causes. She specialized in cultural diversity in the arts, founded a World Music School and worked as a diversity consultant to arts institutions while teaching singing and leading vocal groups.
Part of a large network of socially conscious musicians, Laura mobilized this network to launch Musicians Without Borders in 1999. Today, still drawing largely on the talents of this ever-broadening network, Musicians Without Borders has become one of the world’s pioneers in the use of music to bridge divides, build community and heal the wounds of war.
Laura is currently Director of Musicians Without Borders.
DONATION
Support Laura’s work. Please consider donating to Musicians Without Borders HERE.