Musicians Without Borders began with music. On May 4, 1999, Laura Hassler conducted a memorial concert in her hometown in the Netherlands. At the height of the Kosovo war, Laura had decided to extend the traditional Dutch remembrance of the second world war to those suffering and dying in the wars raging in Europe at that very moment. The performers dedicated their program of traditional Balkan songs– lullabies, love songs, songs of hope and mourning– to ordinary people everywhere, longing for the same things yet always caught between the firing lines.