We have planned and organized the Boston area celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace each year since 2010. This year's theme is End Racism. Build Peace.  The program will include the following:

This Year's Program

Dawn Duncan – Welcome and Introduction

0:25 Dawn Duncan – Land Acknowledgement

2:10 Reverend Rodney L Petersen, PhD

12:40 Miranda Henne

·         Albioni’s Adagio in G Minor

20:50 Mariela Martinez – Spoken Word

26:55 Training and Intermediate Choirs of Boston Children's Chorus

·         Jim Papoulis’ I Ask for One Day

31:35 Boston City Singers members of Cambridge Cantare and Dorchester Vocalise

·         Metisyahu’s One Day

36:45 Reverend Vernon K Walker

48:30 Kaeza Fearn - Meditation

57:25 Issa Bibbins

·         Co-Live

·        Love Again

1:08:50 Reverend Dr. Kevin C Peterson

1:18:25 Deeper Than The Skin

·         Sam Cooke’s Change is Gonna Come

1:26:25 Don Gianniny, Ian Harrington, and Kim West – Honoring the Victims

1:35:25 Reverend Rodney L Petersen – Closing Prayer

Please see below for more information about the people on this year's program.

Contact us at InternationalDayofPeaceBoston@gmail.com

View our Facebook events page

View the United Nations International Day of Peace site

Ramin Abrishamian

Ramin Abrishamian is a co-founder and board member of Needham Diversity Initiative and a representative of the Baha'i Community to the Needham Interfaith Clergy Association. He is an engineer and business consultant and a longtime resident of Needham. 

Issa Bibbins

Issa Bibbins is a pianist, songwriter, rapper and music producer and content curator.

Issa is owner and founder of Pearl for the World Publishing. Besides being a traditional music publishing company, Pearl for the World is dedicated to connecting corporations and nonprofits to original music that connects the arts and Social Justice.

Issa is presently engaged in a Hip Hop project called The Treatment that sheds light on how the mistreatment of people can lead to social traumas and points to some of the treatments necessary for us to heal as a nation. So far, the videos released for this project include “Undiagnosed”, “Hands Up”, “Manicure DA Game”, “It’s Me”, “SuperHuman DNA”, and “Where Do We Go?”.

For more information visit: PearlForTheWorld.com.

Boston City Singers & Boston Children’s Chorus

We are an El Sistema-inspired program founded in 1995 in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. We train and inspire the musician and ambassador in each singer by providing the highest level of musical instruction and wide-ranging performance opportunities. Our programs support personal development, celebrate diversity, and foster good will. 

Boston City Singers’ mission has been to provide the highest level of creative youth development opportunities to underserved young people, ages 4 - 18, in the very communities in which they live. Our programs inspire personal journeys, bridge opportunity gaps, celebrate diversity, and foster goodwill. Our strengths lie in an unwavering commitment to social justice and acceptance of differences across socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and gender preference.

We are proud of our values:

• diversity, inclusion, and respect

• innovation and possibility

• responsibility for our communities.

Boston City Singers provides comprehensive music instruction to over 500 young people annually. Weekly rehearsals are designed to provide our members not only with music instruction but with outstanding performance opportunities, youth development, cultural exploration, leadership training and community service. Singers, grouped by age and level, develop progressive mastery of skills with children from backgrounds different than their own, engaging hearts and minds during the critical after-school hours. Through ongoing mentor relationships with older youth and teachers who share common interests, singers are connected to a strong and supportive community in which teamwork plays an important role.

Young singers learn and perform a dynamic, distinctive and challenging repertoire, supporting the region’s rich artistic diversity in a variety of settings for diverse audiences. We also develop new repertoire, and commission, perform and publish music of distinction. Through outstanding music education and vocal instruction, excellence in performance, and serving the community through song, members experience the joy of singing, teamwork and leadership, musical skills and artistic expression - skills that last a lifetime!

Boston City Singers performs music from many ages and cultures, while learning concepts (melody, rhythm, harmony, timbre, dynamics, form, style, and performance practice) and skills (theory, sight-reading and vocal technique).

Deeper Than The Skin

Deeper Than The Skin is formed by Reggie Harris and Greg Greenway. They have a unique story. Born three days apart, ancestry flowing through the same portal of history, Richmond, VA, they are on a pilgrimage together – one that began three decades ago. The racial divisions that are the reality of America started them in two different worlds, but the amazing bonds of music, respect, admiration, and shared vision have brought them together as friends and colleagues.

Reggie is the Music Education Director of the Living Legacy Project of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), co-leading tours through the hallowed Civil Rights ground of the South. He is a Woodrow Wilson Scholar. Solo, and in the duo, Kim and Reggie Harris, he has led hundreds of programs on Race and Social Justice.

Greg Greenway, one third of Brother Sun, was a part of the planning committee (at Reggie’s request) of Marching in the Arc of Justice, the UUA conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Selma Voting Rights Action. He had the honor for two years of having his song, “Rosa Parks,” play when rosaparks.com was opened. Greg led his song, “What Must Be Done,” in the trio Brother Sun, before thousands of UUs at the opening service of the Providence, RI General Assembly.

Together and individually, Reggie and Greg have brought the issue of Race before audiences all across North America.

The work of justice making is long and difficult. They share not only a story of overcoming, but provide a living, breathing example of celebration, creative resistance, and joy. There are many who say that they are the embodiment of those traits – that their talent and communication skills make their performances infectious. Both are committed professionally in inspiring people, to encourage others to take that step beyond their comfort zone. As they reach across the racial divide, they encourage others to foster the relationships that are, in the end, a path to healing.

Dawn Duncan

Dawn Duncan, MSW, MSc is the President of the Grant Connection (www.thegrantconnection.com), a company that specializes in helping nonprofits navigate the often-complex grant funding maze and access private and government grant funds for their programs. Dawn teaches people how to create and develop projects that are eligible for grants, where to find grant money, how to write compelling grant proposals, how to systematize an approach to getting grant money, and how to set up nonprofit organizations to work in collaboration with for-profit businesses.

Dawn has experience in the areas of nonprofit management, fundraising and contract management. Dawn’s primary skill area is in grant writing, where she has raised more than $35 million in grant funding for nonprofits, small businesses and real estate investors over the past 25 years, with a 90% government grant success rate.

Dawn is part Cherokee and has attempted to continue the traditions shared by her grandfather and has been active in the Native American community for nearly 30 years. Dawn has helped several Native American groups in Massachusetts and continues to serve as a Board member of the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness (MCNAA), a position she has held for more than 15 years.

Dawn is also Founder and President of Circle of Nations Inc. (CNI), a 25-year old non-profit that provides fiscal sponsorship for motivated individuals and nonprofit organizations to develop projects that help others by “paying it forward”.

Dawn holds a Master of Science Degree in Maternal and Child Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Boston University. Dawn serves on the Board of the Massachusetts Alliance Against Predatory Lending (MAAPL) and the Valparaiso University Alumni Board.

Kaeza Fearn

Kaeza Fearn circulates the worlds of music, dance, and relationship-building experiences. She finds joy in many areas, including facilitating groups, performing, composing, teaching, leading sacred circle dance, and coordinating festivals and events.

She is music director at a Unitarian church, summits manager for The Shift Network, and teaches piano to people of all ages. She volunteers in several organizations, including as outreach development director for Colors In Motion, in which she also leads a monthly online contemplative conversational gathering, and for MEER, a project aimed at solving the climate crisis responsibly.

Don Gianniny

Don Gianniny has been involved with Friends (Quakers) since he was a teenager in the 1960s in Charlottesville, Virginia.  A graduate of Friends World College, he has been a regular attender of Friends Meeting at Cambridge since the late 90s.  He is a member of the Peace and Social Justice Committee and was part of the group that proposed celebrating the UN International Day of Peace years ago. Recently he joined the FMC Friends of Racial Justice Committee.

Recently retired, Don was a 4th and 5th grade teacher of English Language Learners for 16 years, and a paraprofessional for 4 years in the Boston Public Schools.  Before that he worked in school-age childcare with the Peirce Extended Day Program in Brookline, and later directed the Cabot After School Program in Newtonville for 14 years.

Gardening with the students was a part of almost all of those years.

He has master’s degrees in education from Wheelock College and Simmons College and was on the boards of Friends World College and Parents United for Child Care in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Today he’s refocusing his work on our relationship with the Earth and each other. 

Ian Harrington 

Ian Harrington has served as chair or co-chair of International Day of Peace Boston since its inception in 2010. A resident of Wayland, MA, he is a life-long Quaker, a dedicated member of Friends Meeting at Cambridge (Quakers), a retired transportation planner, and an enthusiastic volunteer for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. He feels blessed to form a family with his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren.

Miranda Henne

Cellist Miranda Henne performs classical repertoire as a soloist and chamber musician, composes and improvises for theater productions and studio recordings, and performs folk music and bluegrass.

Highlights of Miranda’s stylistically varied career include a solo concerto performance with the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra and two appearances at the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival. An avid chamber musician, Ms. Henne performed with internationally acclaimed artists Andres Diaz, David Halen, Robert McDuffie, Amy Schwartz-Moretti, Christopher Rex, Elizabeth Pridgen, Paul Murphy, Kurt Muroki and Renée Skerik. She has also shared the improv, rock and folk stage with the likes of Mike Mills from R.E.M, Abigail Washburn, Mike Block, Rushad Eggleston, fiddler Bruce Molsky and the piri and Saengwhang player Gamin. In 2012, Miranda collaborated with Shen Wei, choreographer of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Ceremony, to create and premiere The New You, featuring her musical improvisation. She has also worked with and premiered pieces by composers such as Joseph Gregorio and Libby Larson.

In August 2018, Miranda recorded an E.P. with violinist Ellie Miller and banjo player Taylor Shuck, which features one of her original compositions. In 2017, Miranda toured with “Regeneration” by Dr. Nancy Rappaport, a one-woman play about Rappaport’s journey with breast cancer. The show, for which she composed and performed the music, sold out 5 shows off-broadway in NYC and toured in 4 states. In 2019, she traveled to over 20 countries in a piano quintet with Emily Lane, Qiao Yi Miao Mu, Hua-Chu Huang, and Isaac Kay, performing over 250 concerts.

One of Miranda’s central goals since childhood has been to promote peace. In high school, as co-president of the Amnesty International club, she helped with protests and benefit concerts. In college, she organized concerts such as a Daniel Pearl World Music Days Concert and Music for Haiti, which raised funds for earthquake relief and featured performances by faculty at Mercer University. She also designed an independent study called “Music and Social Change,” studying ways to use music for peace. In 2015, she taught for “El Sistema” in Dorchester.

Miranda maintains a private cello studio in Boston, MA and coaches chamber music for the Northeast Massachusetts Youth Orchestras. Miranda holds a B.A. in Music with a minor in English from the McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University and a M.M. from Southern Methodist University. In 2015, she studied at the Glenn Gould School at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. As an undergraduate, Miranda spent a semester studying Shakespeare’s plays in Oxford, U.K. and a month in Wallacedene, South Africa helping local high school students write and produce a musical play.

Toussaint Liberator

Toussaint the Liberator has inspired the Boston music scene with his unique and soulful voice ever since he arrived in 2001. Originally from Kokomo, Indiana - Toussaint was brought up as the son of a Pastor and Choir Director; blessed with a style and cadence that spans many genres which are deeply rooted in gospel. In a perfect symbiosis with his vocals, he is also masterfully skilled in playing the djembe, which is woven into every performance and gives the audience a glimpse into his meditation with rhythm from his ancestors. 

He quickly made a name for himself, initially fronting the band Red Pill, then The China band. In 2007, he wrote and recorded the album "No Place Like Soul" with the band Soulive and was featured on their international tour, opening for legendary artists such as Isaac Hayes, The Rolling Stones, and The Dave Matthews Band. In 2010, he made waves in the reggae scene when he wrote and released a solo album called Black Gold, from IGrade Records in St. Croix. 

His presence and undeniable charisma is hard hitting and full of grit, with a velvety sound that lingers in your mind long after the music ends.

Mariela Martinez

Mariela immigrated from Mexico and grew up in southern California. She graduated from Brandeis University with a master in public policy in May and is now living in NYC with her partner.

Reverend Rodney L. Petersen, PhD

Rodney Petersen is from the Chicago area, then Boston, Geneva (Switzerland), and North Carolina. He is a Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister, trained as an Historian at Harvard and Princeton with postgraduate studies in Geneva.

He taught first at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, then at Webster University in Geneva, and with the Swiss Red Cross before becoming Executive Director of the Boston Theological Institute (BTI). He taught history-related courses in the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant schools of the consortium. In this context he led workshops in conflict-ridden sites in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, South America, the Caribbean in addition to the United States. Upon retiring from the BTI, he became Executive Director of the Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries.

He has been awarded with several ecumenical and interfaith awards and in 2021 received the Governor’s (Charles D. Baker, Massachusetts) Citation as an Outstanding Citizen and recipient of the 2021 Boston Mountaintop Award.

He is the author or editor of numerous publications, including Formation for Life: Just Peacemaking and 21st Century Discipleship (Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2013); general editor, Religion at Harvard, 1636-1992, 3 vols. by G. H. Williams (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014); and Religion and Public Policy: Human Rights, Conflict, and Ethics (Cambridge, 2015).

Reverend Dr. Kevin C. Peterson

Kevin C. Peterson is founder and director of the New Democracy Coalition, [thenewdemocracycoalition.org] a Boston-based Civic Rights Organization that focuses of Civic Policy, Civic Literacy and Electoral Justice. He is also founder of the Faneuil Hall Race & Reconciliation Project, which is aimed at addressing racial repair and social redemption in Boston and across the US. He writes a regular column in Medium. He is an alum of Gordon-Conwell Theology Seminary (CUME) in Boston.

Reverend Vernon K. Walker

Rev. Vernon K. Walker, Program Director at Communities Responding to Extreme Weather, was originally born and raised in Philadelphia. Rev. Walker attended Penn State University for college where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Organizational Leadership and a minor in Psychology. After graduating from Penn State University, Rev. Walker attended Boston University and earned a Master Degree in Theological Studies (M.T.S) with a focus on community engagement.

Rev. Walker is also academically trained in MSW macro social work practices as he took a plethora of courses at Boston University's School of Social Work. Rev. Walker is a Senior Fellow at the Environmental Leadership Program and Senior Fellow at Tufts University Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life through the Institute for Nonprofit Practice. Rev. Walker started as a Fellow at the University of Massachusetts Boston campus Center for Collaborative Leadership in September 2021.