The World Choir Games have opened in Cincinnati with 64 teams from around the world taking part. It's called the Olympics of singing, but this event is also about world unity.
In fact, the World Choir Games also include Friendship concerts which will take place throughout the city. One of the sites for these concerts, the College of Mount St. Joseph, is reporting that it has "sold out" of all free tickets for its July 11 event.
Mayor Mark Mallory says, "Music has the power to bring people together, across political lines, religious lines." That is what the World Choir Games intends to do as it showcases the top musical talent from around the globe.
It also continues a tradition of world friendship in Cincinnati. In 1947 it was the Friendship Train that rolled through Cincinnati on a tour of the USA. This train collected canned goods for European countries, some of which are represented in this year's Choir Games. The food was used to feed the hungry after World War II.
The Friendship Train was an enormous goodwill gesture in the wake of the horror of the Second World War. It led the way in helping nations recover from the destruction. France even sent its own Merci Train to Cincinnati and other US states, thanking them for this act of friendship.
For more information about the World Choir Games, visit the official site.
Article comments
1 - Martha Stephens
World Choir Games is about money and it's a corporate heyday. Selling of high-priced tickets, books, t-shirts -- the works. Big day for big money. Visitors will not see anything at all of real cincinnati, where 48% of children live below the poverty line, according to Columbia School of Public Health. Nah, they won't be going to the World Choir Games.