 Welcome to the United Nations in Vienna and thank you for joining us for a concert that celebrates the numerous voices of migration. Today we're looking forward to celebrating cultural diversity with music. Of course music has always served as a bridge between cultures and as a powerful way for people to connect across geographical and linguistic borders. Today's concert highlights how the benefits of migration outweigh the challenges. Migration not only serves to power economic growth and reduce inequalities. It also connects diverse societies and migration in the form of the migrants. Migrants make significant contributions to international development both by their work and by sending remittances to their home countries. Of course obstacles to safe migration continue to exist and that's why the United Nations works to address challenges in many ways. In January Secretary General Antonio Guterres released a report on making migration work for all. He said that migration is an expanding global reality and managing it is one of the most urgent and profound tests of international cooperation of our time. And more generally the Secretary General has urged everyone to engage in a discourse on migration that is respectful and places our collective humanity at the centre of the debate. A debate in which as he put it, facts not prejudice are used as the basis for addressing its challenges. So today's concert is an opportunity to contribute to this very debate by giving a voice to migration. Thank you once again to everyone involved in organising this event, not least the IOM regional office and of course especially the artists who will be performing today. Welcome to you too. I'm sure you will enjoy the performance. Thank you very much and I would now like to hand the floor to the regional director to tell you a little bit more about this event. Thank you so much and it's great to have you here as always. Thank you. We are delighted to have you here today for this very special event, a unique one celebrating the voices of migration. Migration as you all know is a complex issue and it's in addition one that dominates world news today. All too often we see sensational headlines where migration is portrayed in a negative light with headlines detailing stories of death, violence, despair and hopelessness. And while narrative of migration do involve human smuggling and trafficking or forced displacement or war or persecution or natural disaster, there is another story to migration, a more positive one. This other story is one we wish to tell and celebrate here today. It is a story of talent, of ambitions, of hard work in the face of adversity. Migration brings diversity and this rejuvenates and elevates culture such as cuisine or art or fashion and of course today music. Today we celebrate the voice of migration. We celebrate the talent that migration brings. Today we are joined by a group of young musicians and composers from the diverse backgrounds of different nationalities, most of whom have great migration stories of their own to tell, not today, today they play music. Today it's a perfect example of these positive outcomes of migration, a unique union of diverse groups of people resulting in the beautiful world of art. We are thrilled to be partnering with UNIS for this special event. Martin, I'm very grateful to you and your team for joining us and also supporting us in making this event happen. With guests from World Renewed Juilliard School and artists who are all participating pro bono representing several of world's distinguished conservatories. Today we are privileged to be treated to not one but two world premieres. We know that not every migrant may be a composer or a musician but every migrant certainly has a dream, a voice, a story to tell and a talent to share. Thank you again for joining us today to celebrate such voices and such talent. Before I introduce my dear friend and colleague, Dr. Berli Nugent, the artistic director who so beautifully curated this special concert, I would like to ask you to kindly refrain from all applause until the end of the entire concert. We all know it's unusual but Berli has carefully created the program to flow without interruption in order to tell a seamless story of migration through voices of migration, a title in fact that she has created. Now, I would like to formally introduce Dr. Berli Nugent, the assistant dean and director of Chamber of Music at the World Renewed Juilliard School in New York City. Berli specially curated today's concert, which is the first ever concert of its kind to be held at the United Nations. Watching Berli throughout the past months so meticulously putting together this program was a wonderful experience. She's incredibly passionate. She's passionate not only about her work or about the music but also about migration and promoting its countless benefits. In fact, Berli is the first generation American, her mother is from Austria, and her migrant background shines through the remarkable and high-profile work that she undertakes both professionally as well as personally. Berli is incredibly multi-talented, highly admired and applauded, very respected and most inspiring. Berli's resume, as you can guess by now, it's extensive, but let me highlight just a few. She won several international awards. She taught at most esteemed universities and prestigious conservatories, has played in over 1,000 concerts throughout the world, has been curated prominent musical endeavors with Juilliard Paris Conservatoire, Vienna University Chamber Music Seminar, and of course today with the Voices of Migration Concert. So it is no doubt my great pleasure to have Berli here today, and now it's my pleasure to welcome you on the stage Berli. Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, friends. It is with tremendous gratitude to Marta Nazierski and to Tina Sabadosz that I stand before you today to share this music with my colleagues sitting to the side. This music means a great deal to us. It reflects the voices and the experiences of composers from many countries. The first piece is from Chinese composer Liu Shuang. She grew up during the time of the Cultural Revolution in China and taught at the Shanghai and Beijing Conservatories. She was part of a collective that wrote a piece that you may have heard of called the Yellow River Piano Concerto. This piece was used as a kind of cultural connection between the United States and China during a time of tremendous change many decades ago. She later emigrated to the United States, taught at Syracuse University, and I encountered her music when the American brass quintet was the first American chamber music group to travel to China after the Cultural Revolution and they brought back some of her music. This piece I'm going to play for you was written for a modern silver flute, but I'm playing it for you on something you've probably never seen. This is a raccoon pottery flute made by an American maker and it has a sound that seems to me more like what I would hear in China. Music played on Chinese flutes and she gave her permission that I would play this piece for you on this instrument. Ladies and gentlemen, amazing talent, wonderful music, wonderful performance. I'm certain you have no obstacle in front of us to thank each of and every of the musicians now. So I will be calling your name and please come to the stage. Sophia Han, violin, can you please stand on the stage. Sylvia Kimiko Krutz, piano, Aki Maeda, piano, Geraldine Chu, soprano. Chen Guven, it's our composer who also deputed the world's premier of his place for flute and piano. Shayan Mokitaroni, composer who today deputed the world premiere of his sonnet for soprano flute and piano. And of course, last but not least, Berly Nugent, the flutist and also the artistic director and curator of the Voices of Migration Concert. With many thanks to you all, with many thanks to Eunice, Martin in particular and his team, to the IOM team, Suzanne Arnold in particular for an excellent execution of all the organizational details that we had to deal with through this event. And to you all for helping us celebrating the Voices of Migration today. The buffet is open. Please enjoy the reception. You are all requested to stay on the stage for the press and the photos. We will be soon with you. Thank you again very much.