Inspiring Peace Through Music

Producer Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson is the producer of a remarkable documentary about the simple but

transformative power of music: Playing for Change: Peace Through Music.

Playing for Change is a movement uniting people all over the world through music and

inspiration. I absolutely love their mission and commitment to inspiring peace through music.

The film is unbelievably special and brings together musicians from around the world — blues

singers in a waterlogged New Orleans, chamber groups in Moscow, a South African choir — to

collaborate on songs familiar and new, in the effort to foster a new, greater understanding of

our commonality.

Mark has also been instrumental in creating The Playing for Change Foundation which provides

resources (facilities, supplies, educational programs, etc) to musicians and communities around

the world.

The foundation is working with South African poet Lesego Rampolokenga to build the Mehlo

Arts Center in Johannesburg, South Africa and building and supporting the Ntonga Music School

in the South African township of Guguletu. In addition, Playing For Change is working to

enhance and rebuild Tibetan refugee centers in Dharamasala, India and Kathmandu, Nepal.

Musicians around the world Playing for Change.

According to Mark, “The vision of PLAYING FOR CHANGE extends far beyond just music and

film. We have established the Playing For Change Foundation to build music and art schools for

kids around the world. We have recently returned from Gugulethu, South Africa where we

constructed the first Playing For Change Music School. We plan to build many more schools,

each equipped with cameras and a recording studio so supporters all over the world can watch

recitals and performances in the schools we are building together. We can use these schools as

sources of inspiration and a means of breaking down negative stereotypes among people

everywhere.”

In the words of one of the artists featured in PLAYING FOR CHANGE, Vusi Mahlasela, “The world

is immigrating into a global village, the question is how much do you want to belong.”