The Director-General of UNESCO attended the performance of “The Peony Pavilion,” a tale of love written by Tang Xianzu in the late 15th century and one of the most popular plays in the repertoire of Kunqu Opera, by UNESCO Artist for Peace Zhang Jun within the framework of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training congress in Shanghai, China.

The performance took place in the Kezhi Garden of Zhujiajiao, the water town of Shanghai on the evening of 15 and 16 May.

"I cannot imagine a world without music, art, film, dance, theater and books. It would be a dreary and colorless existence, with little cooperation and communication among citizens. The arts are the glue that holds us together, the cultural fabric of our lives, and they sow the seeds for inventive, universally shared experiences.

Amid today’s challenging times — when creative minds will be needed to solve our collective problems — the stalled peace process between Israelis and Palestinians has taken an unlikely casualty, one that I care about deeply: UNESCO."

Read the rest of Herbie Hancock's OpEd in the Washington Post in support of UNESCO's aims and programmes.

French musician and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Jean-Michel Jarre on tour in Sofia announced on 9 October that he intends to give one Euro cent of every concert ticket sold to education around the world.

“From this night on I will give one cent of every ticket for the purpose of education. And this will be until the end of my life,” the musician said during his concert in Arena Armeets Sports Palace of the Bulgarian capital.

“From now on until the rest of my life in all my concerts I will do this and I will encourage all my colleagues to do it,” Jarre said. “One cent per ticket is nothing. But if we multiply it by the number of performers, the number of tickets sold for concerts, the seats in cinemas, the newspaper copies sold, the sports events, we will have the budget for education ready tomorrow morning.

According to the latest UNESCO figures, some 793 millions adults worldwide do not have basic reading and writing skills, which means that one out of five adults is illiterate and 67,4 millions children are out of school. The number of children who do not attend school regularly or drop out of the educational system is even greater. According to the latest Education For All Global Monitoring Report, 16 billion US dollars would be needed by 2015 to achieve education for all.

Jean Michel Jarre is on tour until 20 November and is scheduled to perform in Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, Russian Federation, Lithuania, Scandinavia, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Austria and Switzerland.