The Nobel Peace Prize Concert (Norwegian and Swedish: Nobels fredspriskonsert) has been held annually since 1994 on 11 December to honour the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. The award ceremony on 10 December takes place in Oslo City Hall, while the concert has been held at Oslo Spektrum, with the attendance of the laureate and other prominent guests. The Concert is broadcast to a global audience and reaches up to 350 million households in 100 countries.[citation needed]
In 2015 the concert venue was moved from Oslo Spektrum to the much larger Telenor Arena. The concert was held there until it was cancelled in 2018, replaced by an outdoor Nobel Peace Party which was organised outside the Oslo City Hall. In 2021 the Concert was relaunched in collaboration with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, architectural firm Snøhetta and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.[1]
The concert features performers from a wide range of musical genres with the exception of the 1995 concert, which featured only classical works. Several editions of the concert are recorded, with different lengths and content, for airing in different countries.
The hosts give descriptions of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's work as well as an interview with the laureate. The laureate gives a speech during the concert.[citation needed]
In 2018, the concert organizers announced that the show would be put on hiatus for 2018, hoping to hold a relaunched concert the following year. The official website stated, "The decision emerges from a wish to re-think the concert format and content but also reflects the challenging financial situation of the concert in recent years. Moreover, people’s media preferences have undergone radical change since the first concert in 1994. This is something the concert organizers and producers are keenly aware of as they move forward. We have struggled to maintain an appropriate level of financing and want to use the year ahead to develop a new format for the concert. Our ambition is to launch a renewed and better concert in 2019. [...] We plan to use this break to further develop the format and strengthen the financing beyond the continuing and generous support of our long term Norwegian sponsors. The firmer our financial base, the stronger our independence in choice of concert format and profile, say concert producers Odd Arvid Strømstad (Warner Bros. Norway) and Kristian Kirkvaag (Gyro)."[citation needed]
Since planning starts in January, the artists invited to the concert aren't typically connected to the winner, who is announced in October. However, a few late additions are usually made to reflect the winner. Originally, the show was hosted by Norwegian celebrities or television personalities. However, since the year 2000 hosts have with few exceptions come from the United States. The Norwegian Radio Orchestra is the main orchestra every year.
At the concert in 1998, American TV network Fox, did not include A-ha's performance, which was edited out. Another performance edited out by Fox in 1998, was Norwegian artist Espen Lind's "Pop From Hell". The word "hell" was not the problem, but the following sentence: "You make me so hard/because you're a star". A Fox-producer stated it would be too much to take for the American family audience. Espen Lind was told his performance would not be edited out if he did not include the word "hard" in the song, but he would not change the lyrics. He said he did not want to let himself be controlled by a double-moralistic American family channel, and that such compromises were not acceptable for him to make.
The Grand Finale in 2003, sung by all the artists, was "Imagine". Robert Plant sang and changed the word "religion" with "division" in the sentence "Nothing to kill or die for/ And no division too".
The use of Tom Cruise as a host created some controversy both from people fearing it could be used to promote Scientology[2] and from people who were unhappy with his supportive statements on the Iraq War.[3] There was however no mention of Scientology during the concert and Cruise has stated his remarks on the war were misquoted. The Grand Finale was led by Patti LaBelle. For the third year in a row, the song chosen for the finale was John Lennon's "Imagine".
Duran Duran – "Ordinary world", "(Reach up for the) Sunrise", "Nice"
Gladys Knight – "Party train / Friendship Train medley", "The best thing that ever happened to me", "I've got to use my imagination", "I heard it through the grapevine", "Midnight train to Georgia"; "I heard it through the grapevine" with Bubba Knight
Mosaic (Gospel Choir) (featured in Envy's "Am I Wrong", Timbuktu's "Alla vill till himmelen men ingen vill dö" and "Let the Monkey Out" and Mary J. Blige's "One")
Mosaic (Gospel Choir) (featured in Queen Latifah's "I Know Where I've Been", Gabrielle Leithaug's "I Believe", Steven Tyler's "Dream on", Girls of the World's "I Am Malala" and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's "Aao Parhao")
Mosaic Gospel Choir, SiNoRi and Elitekoret (featured in select performances)
One of the surviving Hibaku pianos, a series of pianos that were successfully restored following the Hiroshima and Nagaski atomic bombings in 1945, was featured during the event. It was played by John Legend during his and Zara Larsson's duet. This was the last concert before a hiatus was announced in 2018.[citation needed]
No regular Nobel Peace Prize Concert was held in 2018, as the organizers decided to look at the event and make changes. An alternative concert was planned for 9 December 2018. It was estimated that the original Nobel Peace Prize concert will appear again in a different format in 2019, however this has not proven to be the case.[citation needed]
This selection was performed before the actual show started. It did not appear in the televised broadcast, but was uploaded as a separate clip on the concert's YouTube page.
"Tickets for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Concert is here! (link in bio) First band out is @Highasakiteband #nppc pic.twitter.com/FmALPmXOrM" Nobel Peace Prize Concert Twitter account, 1 July 2016
