Global Artists for OneShared.World
OneShared.World is pleased and honored to announce the creation of Global Artists for OneShared.World — an extraordinary group of individuals who share our hopes and dreams for a sustainable future. We send our thanks to them for lending their meaningful voices for OneShared.World.
The OneShared.World Global Artists are: Alan Cumming, Renée Fleming, Arwa Gouda, Kronos Quartet, Lin Hwai-Min, Youssou N’Dour, Arturo O’Farrill, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Sting, and Julie Taymor. Scroll down to read more.
Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming is a Scottish-American actor, singer, writer, filmmaker and activist.
We need to come together. And we need to show people HOW to come together. I’m happy to be a part of OneShared.World’s work to bring us close and make us stronger.
Renée Fleming
Soprano Renée Fleming is one of the most acclaimed singers of our time, performing in the world’s greatest opera houses and concert halls. The recipient of four Grammy® Awards, the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, and the US National Medal of Arts, she is a leading advocate for research at the intersection of arts and health.
Artistic exchange has been a key way to find common ground in the most divided times in history. As a musician I feel like I’m speaking the oldest, most universal language there is. Since our ancestors carved the first bone flute about 40,000 years ago, human creativity and community have been expressed and strengthened through music. In virtually every culture, people celebrate their most joyous events and comfort each other in moments of darkest tragedy by sharing songs, hymns or chants.
Arwa Gouda
Arwa Gouda is an award-winning Egyptian actress, renowned former fashion model, winner of Best World Model award, and well known for her humanitarian activism in the Arab Region and Africa. She spearheaded several campaigns for the betterment of the human condition, most recently including ‘Nafsyy’ campaign on mental health awareness and de-stigmatization.
Love, art, and empathy. No language and no boundaries. These are the universal languages between all living creatures. I believe that a One Shared World is possible if we give in to our feelings of love, and to our empathy towards one another, nature, and the world. Just like a newly born child would move to music without understanding the lyrics or caring about the nationality of the composer, this should be our true nature. I am very happy to be part of this universal language, and to be part of this chain of billions of humans, to be part of a shared world. To live happily and lovingly towards our shared goals.
Kronos Quartet
For more than 45 years, San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet — David Harrington (violin), John Sherba (violin), Hank Dutt (viola), and Sunny Yang (cello) — has combined a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. Kronos has become one of the world’s most celebrated and influential ensembles, performing thousands of concerts, releasing more than 60 recordings, collaborating with countless composers and performers, and commissioning over 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet. The group has won over 40 awards, including three Grammys, and the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre Prizes. The nonprofit Kronos Performing Arts Association manages all aspects of Kronos’ work, including the commissioning of new works, tours and performances, education programs, and the annual Kronos Festival. In 2015, Kronos launched Fifty for the Future: The Kronos Learning Repertoire, an education and legacy project that is commissioning — and distributing online for free — 50 new works for string quartet.
Lin Hwai-Min
Lin Hwai-Min founded Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan in 1973 and has led the company to international prominence through his thrilling creations that transform Asian aesthetics into contemporary celebration of motion. Among the honors he has received are Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the John D. Rockefeller Award, the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, and Time magazine’s “Asian Heroes.” He retired from the position as Cloud Gate’s artistic director in 2019.
It is increasingly clear that the world is a single entity. We are a family. We must help each other and solve our problems together, building a world of beauty and equity.
Youssou N’Dour
Youssou N’Dour, a Senegalese singer, songwriter, composer, occasional actor, businessman and politician. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine described him as “perhaps the most famous singer alive” in Senegal and much of Africa.
In our local wolof language we say Nit Nitay Garabam which literally means The Human Being is The Human Being’s remedy. Also note that the word garab is the same word for Tree as well as Medicine. Our former President Leopold Sedar Senghor used to say culture is at the beginning and at the end of everything. Our diversity is our wealth. Therefore only an interdependent world steeped in diversity can prosper.
Arturo O’Farrill
Arturo O’Farrill is a composer, pianist and educator. Founder and Artistic director of the Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, support organization for the 7-time Grammy-Award-winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. He is also a Professor of Global Jazz Studies, as well as Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for The UCLA Herb Alpert School of the Arts.
The importance of recognizing that nationalism and isolationism are the enemies of humanity was evidenced strongly in the pandemic era. Countless human lives were lost because information and resources were not shared globally. The Cuban medical brigade’s humanitarian visits to Italy during the worst moments of the crisis are an example of what even a poverty stricken peoples can do in a time of international crisis. OneShared.World is a proactive, energized and dedicated group of human beings who are actively seeking to change the paradigm of isolationism. The work they’ve done, the work they have take on and the promise they hold will create a better future based on seeing humanity as a global family that is interconnected in ways that we only just are beginning to realize.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Academy Award-winning filmmaker. Her films focus on highlighting the voices of women and marginalized communities around the world. Her films include Student Athlete, A Girl in the River, and Saving Face and Sitara: Let Girls Dream. She is also the recipient of the Tällberg Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.
Sting
Sting is an award-winning English singer/songwriter, musician, author, actor and activist. He was the principal songwriter, lead singer, and bassist for new wave rock band the Police from 1977 to 1984, and he launched a solo career in 1985. Throughout his illustrious career, he has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age and worldbeat in his music.
Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor is an American director and writer of theater, opera and film. Films include The Glorias with Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander, Oedipus Rex with Jessye Norman (Emmy Award), Titus starring Anthony Hopkins, the Academy-Award winning Frida starring Salma Hayek, Across the Universe (Golden Globe and Academy-Award nominations), The Tempest starring Helen Mirren, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Theater includes: The Lion King, for which she won two Tony Awards, M Butterfly starring Clive Owen and Grounded starring Anne Hathaway. Operas include The Magic Flute (Metropolitan Opera). Julie is a recipient of the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.
We are an interconnected, thus interdependent world. We know this in our hearts but don’t always live up to it in our actions. At no time in the past has it been so urgent thus we come together with a new vision. In Indonesia this sense of community is captured in in the saying Suka Duka. It literally means that we share happiness and we share sorrow, together not alone — as part of our collective society. We are coming together to envision new solutions to overcome some of the challenges threatening our one shared world.