Message from Ms Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the Occasion of International Jazz Day

联合国教科文组织总干事伊琳娜·博科娃在国际爵士乐日的致辞

30 April 2014

2014年4月30日

On 30 April, musicians and music lovers the world over are celebrating International Jazz Day for the third time. Throughout the world, for more than a century, artists have embraced jazz. They have adopted its spontaneity and its freedom of expression. They have played on its ability to decompartmentalize genres, and its links with painting, dance, cinema, literature, photography and more. They have celebrated its power as a participative, interactive music, blurring the boundaries between performers and audiences.

4月30日，全世界的音乐家与音乐爱好者共同庆祝第三个国际爵士乐日。一个多世纪以来，世界各地都有艺术家在演奏爵士乐。艺术家们钟情于爵士乐的即兴创造和自由表达，发挥着爵士乐打破音乐类型的能力，演绎着爵士乐与绘画、舞蹈、电影、文学、摄影的各种关联。艺术家们的创作和演奏彰显了爵士乐的力量，构建起艺术家与公众交融互动的参与式音乐。

Jazz is so much more than music: it is a lifestyle and a tool for dialogue, even social change. The history of jazz tells of the power of music to bring together artists from different cultures and backgrounds, as a driver of integration and mutual respect. Jazz gave rhythm to the struggles of the civil rights movement in the United States, and has done so elsewhere in the world. Through jazz, millions of people have sung and still sing today their desire for freedom, tolerance and human dignity.

确实，爵士乐远不止是一门音乐：它是一种生活方式，是对话乃至社会变革的一种工具。爵士乐的历史讲述的是音乐如何让不同文化和不同背景的艺术家走到一起，如何推动实现文化融合和相互尊重。是爵士乐的节奏一直伴随着美国和世界其他各地的民权斗争，也正是通过爵士乐，成千上万的人们一直讴歌着他们对自由、宽容和人类尊严的渴望。

UNESCO established International Jazz Day to promote these values. This year, once again, hundreds of events and concerts will be organized or improvised worldwide, by authorities, music schools and concert halls. The main event will take place this year in Japan – in Osaka, a city where jazz draws strength from a tradition that dates back to the 1920s, and which has kept its energy vibrant up to the present day. With its numerous jazz clubs and its world-renowned annual competition, Osaka is at the heart of the modern jazz movement. By choosing this city to celebrate jazz, UNESCO also wishes to highlight the extent to which cultural influences and musical interactions forge links between cultures beyond borders and oceans.

联合国教科文组织正是为了弘扬这些价值而设立了“国际爵士乐日”。今年一如往年，全球各地的政府、音乐学校和演奏厅将组织或即兴开展数百场音乐会等活动。今年的核心活动在日本大阪举行，大阪的爵士乐传统可上溯至上世纪20年代，此后人们对爵士乐的热情经久不衰。大阪因其遍布的爵士乐酒吧和世界著名的年度爵士乐比赛而处在现代爵士乐运动中心的位置。联合国教科文组织选择这座城市来庆祝爵士乐日，也是为了彰显文化传播和音乐交流怎样漂洋过海在不同文化不同国家之间建立起紧密联系。

On behalf of UNESCO, I would like to pay tribute to all our partners, in Japan and all other countries, who are organizing events to celebrate jazz and the values it embodies, along with our Goodwill Ambassador Mr Herbie Hancock and the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz, who have supported us from the start. I invite you to join us in spreading the message of energy, sharing and peace through culture and music.

我谨以联合国教科文组织的名义，向我们在日本和世界各地的所有合作伙伴致意，感谢他们为庆祝爵士乐日并宣扬爵士乐所蕴含的价值所组织的活动、所做出的贡献，也感谢从发起这一活动就自始至终与我们携手合作的教科文组织亲善大使赫比·汉考克以及塞隆尼斯·孟克爵士音乐学院。我邀请大家踊跃加入到我们中间，在文化与音乐中徜徉，传递热情、共享与和平的讯息！