UNESCO City of Music Conference (Credit - Georgia Newman)
London is the first ever Canadian city to be recognized as a UNESCO City of Music, today was their second annual conference.
The conference, which is being held at the London Music Hall, is focused on policy development practices that will help shape Canadian communities.
“The main goal today is to connect people to music and get them to understand that music can be a change or tool for positive change. I want people to be looking at the sustainable development goals and understand that they’re doing a lot of this work already,” says Cory Crossman, director of the London Music Office.
There are 17 sustainable development goals including no poverty, responsible consumption and production, and affordable and clean energy.
Natalie Wakabayashi, Mike Tanner and Bob Egan during Music Beyond Entertainment Panel (Credit – Georgia Newman
“I actually think there’s a lot more being done in the city than what people realize which is nice for us with our UNESCO City music designation,” says Natalie Wakabayashi, the Director of Culture and Entertainment at Tourism London. “It’s great to be able to highlight those venues and be able to Shine a light on the fact that they’re contributing to our designation.”
London was recognized as a UNESCO City of Music in 2021.
“The intent of having this designation was to really cement music in this community and to really cement London as a leader in music and I think that it’s done that and I think there’s still a lot more that we can be doing we’re just sort of the tip of the iceberg,” says Crossman.
Organizations like Music Declares Emergency have big plans for the future of sustainability.
“We launched a fundraising campaign raising money to do Environmental Music Awards. Every year we would give out awards for people doing great things around venues and festivals for sustainability, but also for artists who are using their platforms or artists who are making music that addresses themes of environments and nature,” says Kim Fry, co-founder and coordinator for Music Declares Emergency.
“Taylor Swift is ending her Eras tour in Vancouver. We’re wanting to kind of engage Taylor Swift and a campaign to not call her out but call her in, to become an ally and a spokesperson. You know it’s the end of that era and maybe it’s the time. It’s like the beginning of her climate era.”
Georgia Newman and Jack Sutton
XFM News
