Midori travels through Vietnam in December 2018 with MUSIC SHARING’s International Community Engagement Program (ICEP)

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Every year in the second half of December, ICEP brings Western classical music into regions in Asia with limited exposure to it. From December 18 to 27 2018, ICEP’s touring string quartet performs and interacts with Vietnamese residents in schools – including music schools – orphanages, hospitals and schools for people with special needs, such as patients with Hansen’s Disease. They will also visit the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union in and around Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. A visit by the touring musicians to Tuyên Quang Province is being coordinated by the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
MUSIC SHARING, founded by Midori in 1992, focuses on bringing live music to people living under special and marginalized circumstances such as those who have suffered as a result of natural disasters, medical conditions, geographical limitations, and economic hardship.
The string quartet touring with Midori this season consists of Tatjana Roos (violin), Charlotte Malin (viola) und Alan Toda-Ambaras (violoncello). The young musicians were selected through a rigorous audition process. They will also travel to Japan in June 2019 for follow-up concerts.
You can find more information on Music Sharing and ICEP here and about the Touring Party Personnel here.
Midori and her team are chronicling their activities in Vietnam on the Music Sharing Blog, which also includes entries from the last travels to India in 2017 and Nepal in 2016. On MUSIC SHARING’s YouTube channel you can also find videos of those last two ICEP tours.
For further information on Midori’s commitment as a UN Messenger of Peace, you can find:

  • a video of her visit to Mexico in October 2017, where she played music for the victims of the earthquake in Morelos in September 2017, advocated for the UN’s Sustainable Developmental Goals and gave a master class in Mexico City which she combined with a public interview,
  • and a short video statement of Midori for International Day of Peace 2016.

This year’s ICEP tour is, in part, organized in collaboration with IFAD, the office of the Honorary Consul of Vietnam in Aichi – in commemoration of the 45th anniversary of Vietnamese-Japanese Diplomatic Relations –, and the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation. In January 2019, IFAD published an article on Midori’s visit to Vietnam with the ICEP Quartet.
Special thanks go to the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). MUSIC SHARING values the IFAD’s commitment to invest in rural people, empowering them to increase their food security, to improve the nutrition of their families and to increase their incomes.
MUSIC SHARING is a non-political entity and operates solely on generous support provided by individuals, corporations, and foundations. For ICEP Vietnam, these include: Kikkoman Corporation, Mitsui Oil Exploration Co., Ltd., Kao Corporation, Saigon Tourist, Hermes Gift Ltd., The Japan World Exposition 1970 Commemorative Fund.