MANY TO MANY 63 CHILDREN'S CHOIR FESTIVAL, STOCKHOLM

Children's Choir Festival for Friendship
Stockholm 1997

Last year in Stockholm, Sweden, a Children's Choir Festival for Friendship was held to which some 400 children were invited. Among them were many with direct and on-going experience of conflict and war; others had direct experience of racism and oppression.

Felicity Laurence, a music educationalist of New Zealand nationality now living in Germany, gave the keynote address at this festival which she saw as an opportunity for the children to learn something about peace, about reconciliation, about friendship: to start-somehow-building bridges and crossing barriers by sharing life experiences and particularly, for this occasion, making music together.

Here are some excerpts of her address:

In Poland during the first part of this century lived a man called Janusz Korchzak. He was a doctor and educationist who devoted his life to the understanding, protection and liberation of children. His words were strong and influential then within Poland, but they were quenched, and disappeared with him and many children then in his care, in the smoke of an Auschwitz chimney, overwhelmed by the brutal forces of that time. Now, his ideas are filtering back – his books republished, his stories filmed – and they can inspire once again.

He said, "We learn early in life that big is more important than little... little people mean little wants, little joys, little sorrows...who asks the child for his opinion? What can he possibly have to say?"

He saw a society in which children seemed merely as vehicles for their parents' and society's ambitions, existing as 'future' people, without power, without a voice; in deciding how to bring them up there was no understanding that children themselves are the experts about their world and their own experience.

And he said: "Let us demand respect for those clear eyes and smooth temples...respect, if not humility, towards the white, bright and unquenchable holy childhood".

We still need such words, for they remain relevant today, in a world which neglects, demeans, and tolerates abuse of many – probably most – of its children.

Felicity developed at some length the concept of EMPATHY which seemed to her to offer a possible key to being able to understand and describe what she hoped would happen during the festival. She said:

"I would distinguish empathy from sympathy: in a sympathetic response we are affected by the sorrows and plights of others, feel compassion and commiseration and may act to alleviate the otherÕs suffering because of this response; but we feel separate and we keep a distance...I see EMPATHY as a feeling into and sympathy: a feeling for, or with...I would also include in the description of empathy the impulse to respond positively, perhaps to help where there is help needed, or somehow to highlight the experience of oneness."

She goes on to illustrate her understanding of empathy with instances of her contacts with children in Ethiopia for whom she later wrote the children's oratorio: AFRICAN MADONNA. She gave her fellow-teachers specific goals for the festival by which she hoped the children would come to enjoy the experience of 'musicking' together, and through feelings and responses of empathy come to appreciate the connections between all the disparate groups present. Among the goals she suggested were:

We will give the children a context in which there is no competition nor hierarchy; where no one is concerned with comparison, and where everyone is asked to share whatever skill and knowledge they have.

By grouping children from different cultures together, we are giving them a chance to be near each other, which we learnt earlier has an effect upon the expression and probably the initial feeling of empathy. Just being near each other may make empathy easier, and it will also increase their chance of finding a common ground with each other – feeling of identification, and recognising similar experiences, which are the other important factors in empathy.

Further information or full text of address from:
Felicity Laurence, Dorfstrasse 27, Durchhausen, Germany 78591, or
Laurie Salas, 2 Raumati Tce., Wellington 4, New Zealand.

Anthony Brooke and Gita Brooke, co-founders
Te Rangi, 4 Allison Street, Wanganui 5001, New Zealand
phone/fax: +64-6-345-5714 ~ e-mail: Many to Many
under the aegis of
Operation Peace Through Unity
is a communicating link between
'we, the peoples' of all nations, races, creeds and ideologies offering in the spirit of the preamble of the United Nations Charter an instrument for the furthering of better relationships based on deepening mutual understanding and the aspiration to promote unity and cooperation beyond all differences.