Peace Proms - the cross-community initiative rocks Carnegie Hall

Peace is a hard-won goal in the political arena. Just a couple of weeks ago, a cluster of grey suits and tired faces emerged to announce the Windsor Framework for Northern Ireland - another momentous milestone for the North in this, the 25th year of the Good Friday Agreement.

But for a whole new generation, peace is something to sing about - and to play, stamp and celebrate, in the cross-community initiative that is Peace Proms.

You may have seen the posters at your kids' schools: telling of this massive all-Ireland choral education programme, which brings together thousands of primary school children to perform in stadium events. With the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland (CBOI), the children take part in concerts that blend symphonic, rock and Celtic genres, and showcase Irish trad and Scots Ulster heritage in a triumph of joint cultures.

Watch: Highlights from the 2020 Dublin Peace Proms

On St. Patrick’s Day, the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland is set to rock New York’s Carnegie Hall, in a performance which will be opened by the Mayor of New York; guests include Tánaiste Micheál Martin, the British Consul General, the Irish Consul General and director of the Northern Ireland Bureau.

Conductor of Peace Proms, Greg Beardsell is a Yorkshire-born musician, who was already a noted figure on the Irish musical scene when he was approached by CBOI to be their conductor. His signature brand of dynamism and excellence resulted in successful tenures as director of the Ulster Youth Choir, and of the Irish Youth Choir – the latter, a position he held for twelve years.

In person, Beardsell is disarming, impassioned and humorous - an artist clearly ready to engage with young people on their own terms, and to impart his love of music. Renowned for his ability to inspire young people, and with an impressive portfolio of international work, Greg takes a pragmatic approach to working at all levels. "If you’re working near the top of the pyramid, like with Peace Proms, and also within grass roots music-making projects elsewhere, you naturally want to look at ways of creating pathways enabling all young people to excel," he says. "But across our Peace Proms series, the orchestra will perform with thousands of young people in the choirs, so we have this fantastic progression route already built in. In fact, our Dynamic Strings and Count Us In programmes are populated primarily from those kids who have been inspired by watching the orchestra at our shows."

In 1995, Dundalk schoolteacher Sharon Treacy-Dunne took her cue from the implementation of the Peace Process in the North when she founded the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland. Over the course of a few short years, this ensemble established itself through a network of links with cultural and community institutions throughout the island of Ireland and beyond; its core message, one of peace and inclusion. Today, the CBOI is a youth ensemble of 130 musicians, who’ve performed for US and Irish Presidents and King Charles III, and have garnered international plaudits and recognition. More recently, complementary education programmes have been established to enhance the work of CBOI; these include teacher training courses, and free instrumental and music tuition programmes modelled on the "El Sistema" Venezuelan system of education.

To crown all these initiatives is Peace Proms: a hugely ambitious venture which Treacy-Dunne conceived in 2003. Essentially, Peace Proms is a cross-border choral education programme, with "peace through music" as its ethos. Each year, around 35,000 primary school children in the Republic and Northern Ireland take part in 17 stadium concerts; in the North, there’s a 50/50 representation of children from Catholic and Protestant schools. It’s a vast undertaking, which involves year-round planning, and is hugely popular. Greg Beardsell admits they’re "around 50% oversubscribed" with applications. Successful applicant schools are given a comprehensive learning package: "all the music, the word sheets, the backing tracks, choreography videos and get lots of support from the Peace Proms team," he says.

After weeks of initial work with their schoolteachers, come workshops for nearly 2,000 kids at a time, usually held in large sports venues. "I only work with the children for around an hour and a half so it’s important to make it count. The mission of those sessions is to give them the most positive experience that I can, inspiring them to keep rehearsing and achieve great musical results" says Beardsell. Then comes the magic, as children step on stage for the show. "You can imagine, if you’re a ten year old, and it’s your first time into the RDS or the SSE Arena in Belfast. You show up, and there before you is this amazing group of young musicians - a unique orchestra of classical, Celtic and rock instruments, it’s pretty stunning," Greg grins, "Then there’s the audience, the lights, the cheering…"

It’s a churlish point to bring up - Beardsell’s engagement and drive are so infectious - but I have to ask. Is the fact of his being English in any way a sensitive issue, in relation to the political and historical tensions in Northern Ireland and the Republic? He nods in acknowledgement. "When I first started working in Ireland, I did make it my business to learn about the politics and history of the island. It was interesting," he continues. "But the deeper I looked into it, the more I had this increased feeling of ignorance. So. this drove me to study more and more about the history of Ireland and the Irish experience. It’s something that I took and continue to take very seriously."

The mission of the Peace Proms isn’t just geared towards young people, but towards their parents as well. Concert programmes are worked out with an eye to cultural sensitivity; a piece that might carry political associations is couched by a couple of words from the podium. "One of our favourite pieces to perform with our vocal soloist Lauren Murphy is the Cranberries song Zombie, which was written in response to the 1993 IRA bombing in Warrington. But of course I don’t draw attention to those details when I introduce it, rather I find a way of being informative but politically sensitive, always stopping at the water’s edge," says Beardsell. "Largely, I just let the music do the talking".

Watch: Lauren Murphy sings Zombie at the Limerick Peace Proms

For their Carnegie Hall performance, the orchestra’s programme includes Patrick Cassidy’s Mise Eire, and the finale to Seán Davey’s The Brendan Voyage, with its tale of 6th century adventuring by early Irish Christians. Beardsell feels this is important for the occasion. "The further you go back in a nation’s history, the more likely you are to find common ground and in turn, the more likely you are to unite people."

Though its message is peace, the Proms is about a lot more than politics. The stadium vibe, the artful splicing of music styles and the wholesale theme of inclusion - it’s a full on, thrilling experience for a young person. Regarding the wide mix of genres, Beardsell grins: "There are no guilty pleasures in the arts, there are only pleasures! The fact I’m a classically-trained musician conducting mainly rock, pop and Celtic music is a joy. It’s some of my absolutely favourite music." And the pure delight of the experience, for participants and audience alike, is one he hopes will bear fruit.

"What do I get out of it?" he asks rhetorically, "I love the idea of smashing preconceptions. To be honest, the show could be half as good, and it’d still blow people’s minds. Especially for people who have never seen it before, they may come along thinking 'Oh god… A massed choir event, it’s at the weekend, the 6 Nations is on…’ And after they’ve seen the show they go away uplifted, proud for their children and their schools." It’s the fact that expectations of musical performance in schools is so low that bothers Beardsell; something he thinks shows up the need for greater music education policies, both in Ireland and the UK. "Because what you want to give these young people is the drive to take a greater role in music and the arts, and the inspiration to go and see more live music, and you want their mums and dads to consider seeking it out again," he says. "For many of them, they mightn’t have been to a live orchestral show before. So we also see our mission as a cultural and economic one for the nation. We’re trying to create new audiences and broaden the demographic of live music in all its forms".

Watch: You're The Voice, from the Belfast Peace Proms 2023

Set to conquer Carnegie Hall this St. Patrick’s Day, the Cross Border Orchestra of Ireland (CBOI), led by Richie Dunne will be joined by vocalist Lauren Murphy, Uilleann Piper Conal Duffy and Highland Piper Grahame Harris, with Ulster Scots and Irish Dancers, a Brooklyn Pipe Corps and a youth choir, conducted by Greg Beardsell. It's a momentous agenda; politics, culture, education and community. Who better to step up to the challenge than the children of this island? Particularly when the brief involves the super-charged rush of fulfilment and fun to be found at Peace Proms.