Live Update arrow right icon From the Liveblog of Monday, February 5, 2024

Nova music festival victims of Hamas Oct. 7 massacre acknowledged at Grammy Awards

By ToI Staff 5 February 2024, 6:54 am 4 Edit

In a speech at the Grammy Awards tonight in Los Angeles, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. mentions the 360 Israelis gunned down at the Nova music festival on October 7 during Hamas’s shock attack on southern Israel, and calls for peace and unity.

“Music must always be our safe space. When that’s violated it strikes at the very core of who we are. We felt that at the Bataclan music hall in Paris. We felt that at the Manchester Arena, in England. We felt that at the Route 91 music festival in Las Vegas. And on October 7, we felt that again when we heard the tragic news from the Supernova music festival for love, that over 360 music fans lost their lives, and another 40 were kidnapped,” he says in the televised event.

“That day and all the tragic days that have followed have been awful for the world to bear as we mourn the loss of all innocent lives,” he says.

“We live in a world divided by so much… Music must remain the common ground on which we all stand, at peace and harmony,” he went on, also pointing to a string quartet with Israeli and Palestinian musicians who were performing while he spoke.

Earlier at the award show, musician Annie Lennox called for a “ceasefire” and “peace in the world” following a performance of “Nothing Compares 2 U” in tribute to the late Sinéad O’Connor. Her call was met with applause.

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