Music for Life International, founded and directed by my friend, Indian-American conductor George Mathew, creates classical music concerts dedicated to supporting global humanitarian causes. Their concerts, held in Carnegie Hall, have included efforts such as "Requiem for Darfur," "Mahler for the Children of AIDS," and "Shostakovich for the Children of Syria."

At my direction the Institute often collaborated with MFLI. We sponsored many of their Carnegie Hall concerts, such as the Scheherazade Initiative and Beethoven for the Indus Valley. We introduced MLFI to Questscope, and created with them an ongoing music residency in the Za'atari refugee camp in Jordan. I selected George to take the Institute's Bendetson Public Diplomacy Award.

I continue now as Strategic Advisor to MFLI, helping them create meaningful partnerships and selecting their causes, and consulting on political issues.

On January 28th 2019, Music for Life International convened Beethoven for the Rohingya, a concert benefitting Médecins Sans Frontières and their work with the Rohingya refugee population in Myanmar and Bangladesh. I was pleased to help secure Médecins Sans Frontières as the beneficiary. The feature photograph was provided by K.M. Asad of Drik Picture Library, on the intervention of Drik founder, the renowned Bangladeshi photojournalist and human rights and civil society activist, and Rohingya advocate, Shahidul Alam. I introduced Shahidul, a friend and fellow Advisory Board member of the VII Foundation, to consult with George on the concert and wider effort to bring awareness to the Rohingya cause.

The concert, played by an orchestra of volunteering professionals from over thirty countries, featured the renowned American composer and conductor David Amram conducting his “Elegy for Violin and Orchestra,” followed by George Mathew conducting Beethoven’s 9th symphony. George selected the piece, in his words, because:

Beethoven's Ninth symphony resonates in the most human ways with the plight of the millions of our fellow human beings who have been affected by genocide in Myanmar.

The concert also highlighted the efforts of the Rohingyan diaspora community in the United States. Nasir Bin Zakaria, the founder of the Chicago-based Rohingya Culture Center, told his story and delivered a plea for the support of to the international community. Here are his remarks.

It was delightful to have family and friends attending. I was joined by my wife, Iris Adler, who directs the iLab, creating programming, podcasts, and special projects for WBUR and NPR; my son Nathaniel, head of Strategy and Business Development at Master & Dynamic, and his fiancee, Kelly Ward, who has graduated Columbia’s SIPA graduate program in Development Practice and who is an Enterprise Account Executive with Artemis; a close friend and alumna of my Institute’s Exposure program, Biz Herman, who recently published “Women of the 116th Congress” with the New York Times; and Soumaya Difallah, a Wellesley undergraduate studying architecture and one of the Fellows of the Albright Institute in 2019.

MFLI 50th Anniversary concert

We were working with Music for Life International on their 2020 fifteenth anniversary celebration, which coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of Médecins Sans Frontières, MLFI’s first beneficiary during the 2007 Requiem for Darfur concert.

It is wonderful how continuities persist. MLFI will again be working with MSF as a beneficiary. COVID-19 has unfortunately interfered.

The featured photograph of Requiem for Darfur was taken by Ron Haviv, a cofounder of the VII Photo Agency. Ron collaborated with us at the Institute with our Program in Narrative Documentary Practice. I am now closely working with him as a member of the Advisory Board of the VII Foundation, of which he is also a co-founder.

I first encountered Médecins Sans Frontières when I covered the Soviet-Afghan war. I awarded the Institute’s Jean Mayer Award to Médecins Sans Frontières in 2013, accepted by Rony Brauman, one of its founders.