Sri Lanka co-sponsors US resolution

International Jazz Day declared by UNESCO

(October 04, Paris, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Executive Board of UNESCO which is currently meeting at its 187th Session in Paris has unanimously decided to designate 30th April every year as International Jazz Day.

In keeping with the recommendations of the UNESCO General Conference, the United Nations General Assembly had designated 2010 as the “International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures”. As the lead agency UNESCO organized many events with a view to “develop and increase means of communication between peoples, and to employ these means for the purposes of mutual understanding and a truer and more perfect knowledge of each other’s lives.”

It was in this regard that the United States of America mooted the idea of an International Jazz Day, given that Jazz, which originated in the southern part of the country but has roots in Africa and merges both African and European music traditions, has become an international art form.

Sri Lanka co-sponsored and supported this resolution given that this form of music springs from and brings together different cultures and therefore can be regarded as universalistic.

Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of Sri Lanka to UNESCO, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka welcomed the proposal and noted that the unanimous support received from Members States of the Executive Board demonstrated that jazz was truly universal. He added that “words are not the best mode of communication, sounds are.” Ambassador Jayatilleka opined that “given the endorsements across the Board from China to El Salvador it clearly indicated that whatever differences may exist, music unites and none more so than jazz.”

The resolution comes in the wake of the appointment of new UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Herbie Hancock, a veteran jazz musician.

A statement issued by the Sri Lankan Embassy in Paris, France