UNICEF's musical event: The #IMAGINE Project (BJÖRN)

Filmed: Thursday 20 November 2014

Location: New York , USA

Release status: Unreleased

Shown in: Worldwide (Internet)

Additional information

Thursday 20 November 2014 marked an important date on the global calendar: the 25th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child – the most widely-ratified legal agreement to protect child rights. To mark this day and generate much needed awareness and funds, UNICEF embarked on The #IMAGINE Project – one of the world’s largest-ever combined music recordings, to one of the world’s most loved songs, John Lennon’s Imagine.

Through a new App, music artists, celebrity influencers including athletes and actors, and people around the world would be able to record their contribution (vocals and video) which would be mixed together to create a million voices ‘world’ version of the song Imagine, produced by David Guetta for UNICEF, in support of children around the world.

2014 also marked two other UNICEF anniversaries: the 60th Anniversary of UNICEF’s Goodwill Ambassadors (GWAs) Programme (past and present GWAs include Danny Kaye, Audrey Hepburn, David Beckham, Katy Perry, amongst others) and the 35th Anniversary of the Music for UNICEF - A Gift of Song Concert – a huge gathering of music stars such as ABBA, Bee Gees, Olivia Newton-John and Rod Stewart, in 1979 to help raise awareness and funds for UNICEF.

The programme included:

  1. Performances by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors and influential singers representing regions from around the world: Angelique Kidjo; Daniela Mercury; Sonu Nigam; Laleh, performing ABBA’s Chiquitita live (and introduced by Steve Harvey), with Björn joining onstage at the end; Kristian Kostov.
  2. Projected video performances by UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors and influential singers representing regions from around the world, including Katy Perry, Nancy Ajram, Priyanka Chopra, Yuna Kim and others.
  3. Projected video segments from the 1979 Music for UNICEF - A Gift of Song Concert to acknowledge the 35th Anniversary of that historic concert.
  4. Grand finale of a performance of Imagine, led by the 15 year-old Russian singer, Kristian Kostov, who was then joined by all artists on the main stage of the Hall where Yoko Ono sat at a white piano; all were accompanied by a 65-strong children’s choir coming down the aisles from the back of the Hall to the stage

Thanks to Pascale Ranson c/o ABBA Village and Claes Davidsson and Monique Hoevens c/o ABBAtalk.
YouTube link c/o United Nations

 

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