A PITCH FOR PEACE
Kent Nagano is an honorary recipient of a YMCA Peace Medal, awarded on Wednesday, the eve of International Day of Peace. “I’m deeply moved,” OSM conductor told
Kent Nagano comes in peace, and now he has the medal to prove it.
The soft-spoken conductor of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) was an honorary recipient of a YMCA Peace Medal on Wednesday, along with six other laureates celebrated during a charity dinner in Old Montreal on the eve of the International Day of Peace.
Far from jaded about the symbolic award, the maestro spoke with eloquence and passion about the importance of focusing on peace in these troubled times.
“I’m deeply moved,” he told the Gazette. “Of course, this kind of honour is very different from other kinds of recognition — there are social implications, and there is the broader meaning of this kind of recognition right now in 2017. The concepts of partnership and international harmony is something very much at the forefront of everyone’s minds.”
Classical music has a long history of responding to the sociopolitical contexts in which it is created, Nagano said. As proof, he pointed to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, which the OSM performed to launch its new season on Tuesday (and performs again Thursday at the Maison Symphonique); to Joseph Haydn’s The Seasons, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral Symphony, both of which the orchestra will perform in the coming year.
“Mahler’s 8th Symphony deals with the various conflicts facing the world in 1906,” he said. “But those same problems remain glaringly obvious today.
“We have to figure out how to get along and climb above divisions of class, religion, social background and economic status, and find some way through. Mahler’s way through is that with love and forgiveness we’ll find some kind of peace.”
And while peace can seem like a lofty concept, Nagano sees it as something to aspire to.
“Peace is an ideal,” he said. “It’s something that concerns all of us, and is in the back of all our minds, especially at moments like this when it seems like humanity’s existence is called into question.”
A hot ticket at $4,000 to $8,000 per table of 10, the sold-out reception was expected to raise approximately $300,000 for the YMCA’s various programs. That’s music to the ears of Stéphane Vaillancourt, president and CEO of the YMCAs of Quebec, particularly because it allows the organization to continue doing what it does best as it celebrates its 165th anniversary in Quebec, and the 30th anniversary of its Peace Medals.
“The mission of the YMCA is to place young people in environments that permit them to celebrate diversity and respect people around them,” Vaillancourt said, “and let them be positively influenced by models they find in our youth zones and school perseverance programs. One goal of the Y since its founding in 1851 is to permit young people to develop themselves to attain their potential.”
Among the evening ’s other honourees were representatives of the No Hate Speech Movement; Laurent Champagne, who helps former felons reintegrate to society; the YWCA Youth Services; and Montreal’s La balade pour la paix: An Open-Air Museum.
We have to figure out how to get along and climb above divisions of class, religion, social background and economic status.
“We don’t aspire to achieve peace as an end in itself,” Vaillancourt said, explaining the connection between the recipients. “We hope to induce peace through (promoting certain kinds of ) behaviour.
“These are organizations and individuals that can help us attain peaceful behaviours in our communities.”