Nevada: Lake Tahoe’s World Concert reminds us to give peace a chance

What better time for a prayer for peace. The 2014 Trails and Vistas World Concert next month on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe brings together musical and performance artists in a show dedicated to peace and harmony.

“This is about connecting to people and connecting to the land,” says Nancy Tieken Lopez, founder of the nonprofit Trails and Vistas. The organization hosts musical events where guests walk on trails in the woods and are entertained along the way. This year’s World Concert on Sept. 6 leaves the trails for the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival outdoor stage at Sand Harbor State Park south of Incline Village.

It kicks off with a duet by violinist Scarlet Rivera and flutist Ann Licater. Rivera will be performing on what’s called the “violin of peace” made by global activist Patrick McCollum. The instrument was created from almost 100 different pieces of wood, including some from a tribe in Africa that had resolved a conflict with another tribe, a statement about the concert says.

For McCollum, it wasn’t about making a perfect violin but about the process of rebuilding, re-sanding and re-molding it to make it sound better. “It’s just like the peace process,” Tieken Lopez says.

Other acts include Brazilian funk band SambaDa, the San Jose State University Symphony Orchestra, the Tsurunokai Taiko drummers as well as dancers and aerialists.

The event, organized with the Truckee Tahoe Peace Project, gets a jump on Peace One Day, which calls for a day of cease-fires and nonviolence on Sept. 21.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the show starts at 6:30 p.m. Tickets start at $23 per person.

Info: Trails and Vistas, (800) 747-4697