The City of Hiroshima has created and released a video for the English version of the Hiroshima Peace Song, a song which is so important to our city and continues to be sung each year at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Ceremony, in order to share a strong message of peace to the world from Hiroshima, a city that represents peace.
This video features Songs for World Peace, Utako Toyama (winner of the first Hiroshima Award for Music during the first Hiroshima Festival and Songs for World Peace member), Berklee College of Music, Mayors for Peace Executive Cities, municipalities in the Hiroshima Regional Urban Area, and cultural arts organizations, and would not have been possible without their cooperation.
It is our hope that through this video, the Hiroshima Peace Song will echo throughout the ages around the world.
The Hiroshima Peace SongThe Hiroshima Peace Song was composed as an expression of the will to make Hiroshima into a cornerstone for world peace, and completed for the Peace Festival in August 1947. Public lyric submissions were held by the Peace Festival Association (led by Chair Shinso Hamai, then Mayor of Hiroshima) and of these submissions, Mr. Yoshio Shigezono’s lyrics were chosen and set to music by Mr. Minoru Yamamoto. The song was performed with pride by a chorus during the very first Peace Festival, held with dignity on August 6 of the same year. Currently, the Hiroshima Peace Song continues to live on, and is performed each year at the Peace Memorial Ceremony.