Nobel Peace Prize Concert

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Each year on the date of death of Alfred Nobel, December 10th, the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony takes place in The City Hall of Oslo, Norway. The Nobel Peace Prize Concert is held the day after the award cermony, in the Oslo Spektrum Arena, with the winner and prominent guests attending. The arena takes approximately 6.500-7.000 guests and the concert is broadcast to over 100 countries.

The first Nobel Peace Prize Concert was held in 1994. The concert has been held every year since and features a wide range of international stars of different music genres, with the exception of 1995 when a classical concert was held instead.

Several edited editions of the concert are made, with different lengths and different content, for various countries.

The concert has been criticised for featuring artists and hosts based on their stardom rather than their representativeness of the Peace Prize idea. This has been countered by opinions such as one should of course celebrate the prize winners and that the international stars will create attention towards the prize and winner from people who normally might not take that much notice. The hosts give descriptions of the winner's work, an interview of the winner is shown and the winner gives a speech during the concert.

Contents

[edit] Laureates, hosts and artists by year

Since planning starts in January, the artists invited to the concert aren't typically connected to the winner, who is announced in October. There are however usually made a few late additions, to reflect the winner. The Norwegian Radio Orchestra is the main orchestra every year.

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] 1994

Laureates: Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin

Artists:

[edit] 1995

Laureates: Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

This year a concert featuring only classical works was held.

[edit] 1996

Laureates: Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos Horta

Artists:

[edit] 1997

Laureates: International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and Jody Williams

Host: Stephanie Seymour

Artists:

Harry Connick Jr brought 35 musicians with him on stage, when performing at the concert in 1997.

[edit] 1998

Laureates: John Hume and David Trimble

Host: Åse Kleveland

Artists:

At the concert in 1998, American TV network Fox, did not include A-ha's performance, which was edited out. Another performance edited out by Fox in 1998, was Norwegian artist Espen Lind's "Pop From Hell". The word "hell" was not the problem, but the following sentence: "You make me so hard/because you're a star". A Fox-producer stated it would be too much to take for the American family audience. Espen Lind was told his performance would not be edited out if he did not include the word "hard" in the song, but he would not change the lyrics. He said he did not want to let himself be controlled by a double-moralistic American family channel, and that such compromises were not acceptable for him to make.

[edit] 1999

Laureates: Médecins Sans Frontières

Host: Claus Wiese

Artists:

[edit] 2000

Laureate: Kim Dae Jung

Host: Jane Seymour (short notice cancellation by Meryl Streep)

Artists:

[edit] 2001

Laureates: The United Nations and Kofi Annan

Hosts: Liam Neeson and Meryl Streep

Artists:

The 2001 concert's closing song was "Let It Be", performed by Paul McCartney and the other artists.

[edit] 2002

Laureate: Jimmy Carter

Hosts: Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange

Artists:

The Grand Finale in 2002, sung by all the artists, was "Imagine". Opera star Jessye Norman forgot the lyrics.

[edit] 2003

Laureate: Shirin Ebadi

Hosts: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas

Artists:

The Grand Finale in 2003, sung by all the artists, was "Imagine". Robert Plant sang and changed the word religion with division in the sentence "Nothing to kill or die for/ And no division too".

[edit] 2004

Laureate: Wangari Maathai

Hosts: Oprah Winfrey and Tom Cruise

Artists:

The use of Tom Cruise as a host created some controversy both from people fearing it could be used to promote Scientology[1] and from people who were unhappy with his supportive statements on the Iraq war[2]. There was however no mention of Scientology during the concert and Cruise has stated his remarks on the war were misquoted.

[edit] 2005

Laureates: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Mohamed ElBaradei

Hosts: Julianne Moore and Salma Hayek

Artists:

The Grand Finale in 2005, sung by all the artists, was "Give Peace a Chance".

[edit] 2006

Laureates: Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank.

Hosts: Sharon Stone and Anjelica Huston

Artists:

The artists joined Lionel Richie on stage at the end of the the show when/after he was singing "All Night Long".

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Article in Dagbladet on Cruise, Scientology and the Concert (Norwegian) Retreived 12 December 2006
  2. ^ Article from BBC NEWS on Cruise and Spielberg backing the war in Iraq Retreived 12 December 2006

Coordinates: 59°54′46.68″N, 10°45′16.74″E

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