The city of Montreal and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra will hold events this week to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.
Montreal and Hiroshima are twin cities, and team up on cultural and commercial endeavours. As part of the commemoration, there will be a ceremony at the Botanical Gardens and a concert at the Olympic Park Wednesday.
The actual anniversary is Thursday – on Aug. 6, 1945, thousands of Japanese people were killed when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
At 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, the Peace Bell at the Japanese Garden in the Botanical Gardens will ring out. The Montreal ceremony will go on simultaneously with the one in Hiroshima Thursday morning. The bomb was dropped at 8:15 a.m. in Hiroshima, which was 7:15 p.m. the previous day in the eastern time zone.
The Peace Bell was a gift from the city of Hiroshima to Montreal in 1998 when the two cities were twinned.
Following the commemoration, the MSO will put on a concert on the Sun Life Esplanade at the Olympic Park.
Conductor Kent Nagano said he didn’t impose on the musicians, but rather asked if they were willing to take part in the ceremony.
“Naturally I was very moved that the entire orchestra wanted to perform. It gives a symbol of how deeply we as an organization take our responsibility as a cultural institution,” he said.
The MSO will play three pieces, one by a Japanese composer, one by Schubert that was performed and sung many times during the reconstruction in Hiroshima after the war, and a Japanese folk piece. The orchestra will be accompanied by the Choeur des enfants de Montreal.
