Grammy Award-Winning Violinist and Humanitarian Miri Ben-Ari Headlines 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates
New York City, NY, October 2, 2014 (Newswire.com) -
Grammy award-winning violinist, producer and humanitarian Miri Ben-Ari will headline a special invite only concert opening the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at Cape Town City Hall on October 13th.
This year’s theme is “Peace. Living It! in honour of Nelson Mandela.” The summit will host laureates including 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" and 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,” declared Ben-Ari. “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, a classically-trained violinist known for her revolutionary fusion of classical soul and dance music, has worked with artists such as 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 creating a new sound for her comeback album in 2014. She is currently the Global Brand Ambassador for Harman Kardon and was recently named Goodwill Ambassador of Music for the United Nations Association of Brasil.
Ben-Ari was featured in the title track of Armin Van Buuren’s (#1 DJ in the world) latest album Intense. Her song was chosen as the “Tune of the Year” in 2013 by the ASOT community in Electronic Dance Music.
Ben-Ari is currently headlining her own spot date performances around the world and has been featured as a special guest with Van Buuren on his Armin Only Global tour. Ben-Ari was named the Third Metric Musical Muse for Arianna Huffington and is traveling to several cities in the United States to headline as a special guest performer. Ben-Ari is also launching a global campaign this year with Scholastics, sponsored by her non-profit organization Gedenk, to educate kids about tolerance.
To learn more about Miri Ben-Ari, visit www (dot) miribenari (dot) com, visit facebook.com/MiriBenAri and follow her on Twitter (@MiriBenAri), Huffington
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