Thursday , March 28 2024
Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory: "Music has the power to bring people together, across political lines [and] religious lines."

World Choir Games: Friendship Trains to Friendship Concerts

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.

About William Lambers

William Lambers is the author of several books including Ending World Hunger: School Lunches for Kids Around the World. This book features over 50 interviews with officials from the UN World Food Programme and other charities discussing school feeding programs that fight child hunger. He is also the author of Nuclear Weapons, The Road to Peace: From the Disarming of the Great Lakes to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Open Skies for Peace, The Spirit of the Marshall Plan: Taking Action Against World Hunger, School Lunches for Kids Around the World, The Roadmap to End Global Hunger, From War to Peace and the Battle of Britain. He is also a writer for the History News Service. His articles have been published by newspapers including the Cincinnati Enquirer, Des Moines Register, the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Buffalo News, San Diego Union Tribune, the Providence Journal, Free Lance-Star (VA), the Bakersfield Californian, the Washington Post, Miami Herald (FL), Chicago Sun-Times, the Patriot Ledger (MA), Charleston Sunday Gazette Mail (WV), the Cincinnati Post, Salt Lake Tribune (UT), North Adams Transcript (MA), Wichita Eagle (KS), Monterey Herald (CA), Athens Banner-Herald (GA) and the Duluth News Journal. His articles also appear on History News Network (HNN) and Think Africa Press. Mr. Lambers is a graduate of the College of Mount St. Joseph in Ohio with degrees in Liberal Arts (BA) and Organizational Leadership (MS). He is also a member of the Feeding America Blogger Council.

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