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International Alert, UK’s leading peacebuilding charity, has called on Nigerian musicians – and musicians from other countries -- to join a global collaborative music project that will bring together internationally celebrated recording artists. The music project, which is called Peace Tracks, is part of the charity organization’s second Talking Peace Festival scheduled to hold in London from 3 September to 3 October 2015.

The project will involve recording a song online for the UN International Peace Day which is on 21 September. Peace Tracks brings together famous recording artists with musicians from around the world, particularly regions which have been affected by instability.

The musicians are invited to record songs inspired by short tracks contributed by the famous artists and groups such as legendary pop group ABBA, singer-songwriter and activist Angélique Kidjo, sitar player and composer Anoushka Shankar, Oscar-winning film-score composer A.R. Rahman, bassist and lyricist Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), drummer Roger Taylor (Duran Duran), guitarist and singer-songwriter Melissa Auf der Maur and influential composer Philip Glass. The music recordings will be done using the online collaborative platform, Ohm Studio.

The project aims to give musicians a platform to collaborate across geographic divides, but most importantly to express their views on conflict and peace drawing on their unique musical heritages and diverse styles.
 
Black Sabbath’s bassist, lyricist and co-founder, Geezer Butler, said: “From the earliest Sabbath stuff, I’ve written lyrics about the grim reality of war. Peace Tracks can hopefully bring more people around the world to think about peace.”                                                           
International Alert has been working in Nigeria since 2012. Ilaria Bianchi, Head of Communications at International Alert said: “Collaboration is key to music making, but it’s also integral to peacebuilding. Through this project, we hope to demonstrate the opportunities that music and technology open up for building new relationships across borders and cultures, and sparking conversations about important global issues.”

Contributions will be accepted online until Thursday, 10 September. The best of these will be released on 18 September, in the run up to UN International Peace Day on 21 September.

International Alert’s month-long series of events are designed to spark conversations about peace through creativity.