History

Håkan Lewin and Johannes Landgren started playing music together in 1998 at the concert “In My Solitude”, that mainly contained music from Duke Ellington’s three sacred concerts. During many long concert tours, they discussed the increasing violence in their home town Gothenburg.

The idea gradually crystallized to arrange a concert that would be a musical protest to the increased violence. The result was a concert containing African music, mainly “negro spirituals”, but even music by Duke Ellington and other composers, whose music contained a lyrical message that could be interpreted as a protest against violence.

The concert was called “Freedom, the Vision” and was performed on several stages in Sweden.

On September 16th, 2001, the duo arrived in NY for a concert. There they had first hand experience of the catastrophe at the World Trade Center. The problems in Gothenburg were minute by comparison, but the duo’s conviction to demonstrate against violence in their own way became much more apparent and had taken on a global significance.

After their tour in Croatia, where huge memorials that were raised after the war in the Balkans reminded humanity of their ability to use violence, and after tours in Russia a few weeks after the catastrophe at Beslan, the duo had the “Freedom, the Vision” concert in the Dome Cathedral in Gothenburg in connection with the International Organ Academy in 2004. There, Brittmo Bernhardsson met Håkan Lewin, and they discussed music and its roll as a source of energy, and how music can manifest the message of non-violence.

After their tour in Croatia, where huge memorials that were raised after the war in the Balkans reminded humanity of their ability to use violence, and after tours in Russia a few weeks after the catastrophe at Beslan, the duo had the “Freedom, the Vision” concert in the Dome Cathedral in Gothenburg in connection with the International Organ Academy in 2004. There, Brittmo Bernhardsson met Håkan Lewin, and they discussed music and its roll as a source of energy, and how music can manifest the message of non-violence.

On United Nations Day, October 24th, 2005, the association formally presented their constitution at a meeting at the residence in Gothenburg in the presence of 30 motivated individuals.