Music of Healing

The Artsawonder charity is anchored in the tradition of the annual “Music of Healing” seminar begun in the early nineties in Rostrevor. Based on a song of that name penned by Tommy Sands and the late Pete Seeger, the seminar uses music and song to facilitate meetings of opposite sides in the Northern Ireland conflict.

The music of healing concerts have united a wide variety of musicians and speakers. The resulting dialogue has touched on the darker religious texts underlying prejudice and violence, mediated by experts in dialogical engagement in religiously motivated conflict. Participants are committed to an ongoing dialogue with people they strongly disagree with.

A key focus of these gatherings is to examine a higher quality of disagreement that allows for furthering understanding, peace building, reconciliation, justice and healing by exchanging each other’s traditional teachings and visions on major current issues such as hospitality, homelessness and respect for reciprocal pluralism.