‘...the unique strength of music as an ambassador for peace...’World Orchestra for Peace

Founder Sir Georg Solti
Conductor Valery Gergiev
Patron Lady Solti
Director Charles KayeTHE WORLD ORCHESTRA FOR PEACEa symbol of the ‘the unique strength of music as an ambassador for peace’
Founder: Sir Georg Solti
CONDUCTOR: VALERY GERGIEV
Brainchild of the outstanding conductor Sir Georg Solti, the World Orchestra for Peace was formed
in 1995 at the behest of the United Nations to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding. The
seed of this ambitious idea had been sown three years previously, at a concert to celebrate Solti’s
80th birthday at Buckingham Palace, hosted by TRH Prince Charles and Princess Diana. As wellas the many stars who paid tribute to Solti, thirteen musicians from thirteen of the greatest orchestras in the world gave a performance of Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll without a conductor. As Solti
thanked them, he explained what had most struck him as he listened: ‘I could not escape one very
essential idea. Isn’t it amazing that we musicians can produce a united Europe or more… even aunited world. Why can’t the politicians?’
The World Orchestra for Peace is an orchestra put together to serve music’s highest aspirations,as an expression of harmony on all levels. In keeping with that aim, its players are the finest,
drawn from top ensembles all over the world to form a truly ‘all-star’ orchestra. At the inaugural
UN concert in Victoria Hall in Geneva, astonishingly every single one of the 81 players Solti had
asked accepted immediately and came. They played Rossini’s William Tell Overture as a homage
to Switzerland, Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra to mark the 50th anniversary of the composer’s
death, and the finale of Act II from Beethoven’s Fidelio, to reflect its qualities of brotherhood, libertyand humanity. It was an inspiring realisation of Solti’s vision, as he was able to declare then: ‘I ama passionate believer in peace. All my life I have been involved in revolution, both fascist and communist. It has taught me to believe passionately in peace. When we started this concert idea, I
wanted to prove – which I now prove so brilliantly – we are about 40 nations in this orchestra
together, [and] we live in such harmony, playing so beautifully [together], we prove that we can livein peace. I wish politicians, left and right, could do the same.’
The second occasion the orchestra was due to reassemble was for the inaugural concert of the
new Festsspielhaus in Baden-Baden in 1998. Preparations were progressing well, nearly threequarters of the original Geneva players had signalled their readiness to play again when, in
September 1997, Solti suddenly died.

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At this point Charles Kaye, Solti’s Executive Administrator for over 20 years and keen to preserve
Solti’s achievement in bringing such a concept into being, approached the man whom Solti had
seen as his natural successor: Valery Gergiev. The magic and electricity of Geneva was rekindledand within minutes of coming off the podium at Baden-Baden, Gergiev was asking Kaye to find anopportunity to reassemble the orchestra.
That request bore fruit two years later, on the penultimate night of the BBC Proms 2000, 60 years
to the day after the start of the London Blitz, where the orchestra played Debussy’s La Mer and theLeningrad Symphony, Shostakovich’s tribute to Leningrad’s heroism during the desperate siege of1941, but also hymning the beauties of a peaceful way of life. Gergiev explained why he had chosen the Shostakovich symphony: ‘There can be political differences. There can be religious differences based on these differences but we are all daughters and sons of world culture. We all sharethe same values: we all love music, art – we love the human element in music... This is, in a way,
why we play Shostakovich. The Leningrad Symphony No.7 has this human message, about the20th century in particular.’
Again, the musicians came from all over – Brazil, Hungary, England, Germany, Switzerland,Finland, France, Austria, America, Canada, Russia, Portugal, Belgium, Japan – in all, twenty-six
countries were represented by these 109 players drawn from 66 orchestras. Among the 16 firstviolins, half were concertmasters of their home orchestras.
Gergiev then asked Kaye if he would again assemble the World Orchestra for Peace for two concerts in Russia; opening the 11th ‘Stars of the White Nights’ Festival dedicated to the celebrationsof St Petersburg’s 300th anniversary and closing the second Moscow Easter Festival in May 2003.
This time 110 players represented 77 orchestras from 44 countries, including 15 concertmasters.
And so the orchestra goes from strength to strength, a living, playing testament to a rare idealism.
It gathers only at special occasions to promote peace or celebrate reconstruction – the essence of
its special mission, but a consequence also of the logistical challenge in reassembling this remarkable collection of people, plucking each of them from their home orchestras so they can once
again appear together on the podium, to bear witness to the encompassing power of music and its
unique strength as an ambassador for peace.