Musica Sacra International receives award in recognition of contribution to peace

INTR°A Project Award for Dialogue and Peaceful Coexistence of Religions

The Interreligious Working Group INTR°A awarded this year's Project Prize for Complementarity of Religions to the Interreligious Music Festival Musica Sacra International Marktoberdorf last Saturday during its annual conference at the Melchanthon Academy in Cologne. The prize was accepted by Ramona Wegenast (Managing Director MODfestivals e.V.), Bettina Strübel and Dr. Verena Grüter (Artistic and Scientific Director of Musica Sacra International) at the annual conference in Cologne.

In the justification for the award, it says: "The festival "Musica Sacra International", located in Marktoberdorf in the Allgäu region, was founded as early as 1992 and has since done pioneering work in the field of interreligious music. From the very beginning, this exemplary project has pursued the goal of contributing to dialogue and peaceful coexistence between religions in the face of social and political conflicts caused by religious extremism, among other things. The festival, which takes place every two years, focuses on concerts with ensembles of different religious and cultural origins, accompanied by an extensive supporting programme."

The jury came to the conclusion that "Musica Sacra International" has already made a valuable contribution to peace in this sense over many years and is therefore awarding the festival the INTR°A Project Prize in this very year 2022. The prize has been awarded annually since the beginning of the 2000s and is endowed with 5000 euros thanks to the "Apple Tree" Foundation. In recent years, the award has been given not only to German and German-speaking pioneers and pioneering projects of interreligious understanding, but also to projects in India, the Netherlands, Israel and Sweden. Last year, it was awarded to the renowned India expert, cultural mediator and dialogue specialist Dr Martin Kämpchen.

The Interreligious Centre INTR°A, which is now based in Schwerte near Dortmund, was founded in the early 1990s by pioneers of interreligious dialogue and interreligious theology and education. Since then, it has dedicated itself to promoting interreligious dialogue on an equal footing and corresponding education at conferences, in publications and through other activities.

Caption:

Ramona Wegenast (from right)(Managing Director MODfestivals e.V.), Dr. Verena Grüter and Bettina Strübel (Artistic and Scientific Director of Musica Sacra International) received the award from the jury at the annual conference of the interreligious working group INTR°A in Cologne.