wfn.org | Complex challenges for Baha 'is in putting on an outdoor celebration

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@wfn.org>]

for thousands

NEWS RELEASE: Complex challenges for Baha ' is in putting on an outdoor 
celebration for thousands

FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact ieomedia@bwc.org OR VISIT Baha'i World News 
Service
     http://www.bahaiworldnews.org>

Complex challenges for Baha'is in putting on an outdoor celebration for 
thousands

HAIFA, Israel, 21 May 21, 2001 -- Gry Kvalheim worked behind the scenes on 
logistical arrangements for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and also the 1992 
Baha'i World Congress, which brought some 30,000 Baha'is from around the 
world to New York.

She nevertheless counts the inauguration of a series of majestic garden 
terraces tomorrow on Mount Carmel as one of the most complex undertakings 
she's ever been involved with.

Among other things, the celebration this week entailed making travel and 
hotel arrangements for 3,000 Baha'is from more than 180 countries, the 
construction of a 4,000-seat temporary amphitheater, and the coordination 
of a musical program that brings together a symphony orchestra from Israel, 
a choir from Romania, and soloists from around the world. More than 60 
buses have been hired just to shuttle participants around.

"This is one of the biggest events in Israel this year, and certainly one 
of the biggest in Haifa ever," said Ms. Kvalheim, who is Managing Director 
of the Inaugural Events Office, which has organized the celebration. "We've 
essentially had to book every hotel room in Haifa and in surrounding 
cities, from Nahariyya on the other side of Acre to Zichron Ya'acov in the 
south."

Ms. Kvalheim, who has been a Baha'i since 1959, also feels the assignment 
is the most significant she has ever undertaken.

"As a Baha'i, I don't think you can even fathom the importance of this 
event," she said, noting that the scriptures of the Baha'i Faith promise 
that such structures would one day grace the slope of Mount Carmel. "For 
us, it is prophecy fulfilled."

Built at a cost of some $250 million, the 19 garden terraces and two nearby 
administrative buildings completed this year are being offered up to the 
world this week as a demonstration of  how diverse peoples can come 
together in peace and harmony.

The worldwide Baha'i community of some five million people from virtually 
every background and nation have sacrificed and labored in a spirit of love 
and unity over the last decade to fund and complete the project.

Today, in celebration of the project's completion, the 3,000 Baha'is 
gathered here visited the Shrine of Baha'u'llah, the Founder of the Baha'i 
Faith. Located in the city of Acre, across the bay from Haifa, the Shrine 
of Baha'u'llah is the most holy place in the world for Baha'is. The program 
featured prayers and devotional elements designed to spiritually prepare 
them for the week ahead.

On Tuesday, the terraces will be formally inaugurated with a world premiere 
concert of two orchestral works composed specifically for the occasion and 
the reading of a message from the Universal House of Justice, the 
international governing body of the Baha'i Faith. The concert and 
ceremonies will be available worldwide by satellite and webcast. Dozens of 
representatives of the international media have expressed a desire to 
attend and cover the event.

Making logistical arrangements for the concert and inaugural ceremonies, 
which will continue until Friday, has been a huge undertaking, made more 
complex because the concert will be held outside, at the base of Mount Carmel.

The Inaugural Events Office has arranged for the construction of a massive 
4,000-seat temporary amphitheater around the plaza that forms the first 
terrace on the mountainside, at the top of Ben Gurion Avenue. This has 
necessitated closing the intersection of Ben Gurion Avenue and Hagefen 
Street, one of the city busiest locations, to automobile traffic for two 
weeks. The Inaugural Events Office has collaborated closely with the City 
of Haifa throughout the project.

"We consider the gardens a gift to us," said Moshe Tzur, managing director 
of the Haifa Tourist Board. "We hope it will become one of the main tourist 
attractions in the world. And the people of Haifa, they understand and are 
more than happy about it."

Jack Lenz, music director for the event, said the holding of such a concert 
outside, in a temporary amphitheater, entailed numerous special musical 
concerns.

"We're not doing this with the natural acoustics of a hall, and the 
challenge is how do you make it sound good outside," said Mr. Lenz, who is 
himself a well-known composer, artist and producer in Canada.

One potential problem is excess wind, which could create unwanted noise. To 
counter that, wind socks will be put on all microphones.

"You plan and do what you can do and then you leave the rest up to God," 
said Mr. Lenz. "I'm assuming the weather will be great and the wind will be 
low."

As well, said Mr. Lenz, concerts held outside often lack the fullness of 
sound that is heard in a concert hall, where the sound waves are reflected 
off the walls and ceiling. To compensate, they will put individual 
microphones on each instrument in the orchestra, instead of at just a few 
locations, and then add reverberation or other effects at the mixing console.

Like Ms. Kvalheim, Mr. Lenz feels that an extraordinary sense of history 
and importance surrounding the inauguration.

"This is a unique event in the Baha'i dispensation," said Mr. Lenz. "The 
terraces will be here for hundreds of years. The mountain itself has been 
celebrated in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition for thousands of 
years. In the Bible, for example, Isaiah talks about songs of "everlasting 
joy" on Mount Carmel.

"More than 75 percent of the program on Tuesday night is music," added Mr. 
Lenz. "So that fits in with the whole prophetic vision of the mountain."

In addition to the participation of more than 3,000 Baha'is from around the 
world, several hundred dignitaries are expected to attend the concert 
tomorrow. The list of confirmed attendees includes a number of government 
ministers, several Israeli Supreme Court justices, ambassadors and members 
of the Israeli Knesset.

"The project and its completion has provoked an unexpectedly enthusiastic 
response within Israel," said Albert Lincoln, secretary general of the 
Baha'i International Community.

Dr. Lincoln said during Passover, for example, the number of Israeli 
visitors to the gardens that immediately surround the Shrine of the Bab, 
which have long been open to the public, exceeded 12,000 visitors on one 
day.  Previously, he said, visits to those gardens ran from 1,000 to 2,000 
on Jewish holy days.

"Likewise, the response to the invitations sent out for the opening 
ceremonies has been far beyond anything anticipated by professional events 
organizers or any previous experience we've had," said Dr. Lincoln.

In anticipation of the thousands more who will want to visit the terraces, 
which will be opened to the public on 4 June, a special computerized 
reservation system has been set up and a new group of tour guides have been 
trained. Ultimately, it is expected that more than a million people a year 
will visit the terraces. The tours will be offered at no charge.

- end -