Select Page

A Conversation with Georgia Kelly ImageGeorgia Kelly is a remarkable woman. Although one of her most important achievements is the founding of an Institute of Peace, you may be more familiar with her successes as a musician.

A classically trained harpist and pianist, Georgia helped give birth to a new kind of music – one of the first original New Age sounds. She has published numerous albums, many on her own music label, Heru Records, before going on to record for Global Pacific and Sony. Her music has been used in documentaries, TV programs, and in hospitals and clinics throughout the world.

Georgia is also the founder and director of Praxis Peace Institute, a non-profit peace education organization. Here she brings together her passion for responsible citizenship and her interest in education – the focus of the institute is systemic social change in the theory and practice of peace, social justice, and sustainability.

On this program you will also discover how Georgia worked together with Dr. Miller, using Deep Relaxation and Guided Imagery to give birth to her music, and to the Seminal Rainbow Butterfly. Some of this album as well as other recordings of her music will be played, including a clip from her very first recording, Seapeace.

Musician as Peace Explorer
We will follow Georgia as she describes how she went to visit, for the first time in her life, her relatives in Yugoslavia in 1991 – only to discover herself near the front lines when the Civil War broke out. She will share with us what it was that evoked in her the vision of creating an organization to sponsor conferences around the world to bring together peace leaders with the purpose of exploring conflict resolution and alternatives to war.

Georgia will share with us what she has learned through her work since then – including glimpses of how we’ve become captives of our cultural narratives, the importance of both self-reflection and national reflection, and the way economic factors drive us to war. Finally we will learn more about the remarkable work she’s doing currently and the Mondragon Project. This fascinating project is a unique 5-day learning experience, visiting onsite, in Spain, the world’s largest consortium of worker-owned businesses whose goals are to develop a cooperative caring, non-exploitative way of doing business. Beginning with only three businessmen, the organization is now more than 100,000 strong.

Don’t miss this treat for your mind and your musical sensibilities.

Georgia Kelly is the Founder and Executive Director of Praxis Peace Institute. She has produced and directed three 7-day peacebuilding conferences in Dubrovnik, Croatia (2000, 2002, and 2007), a fourth conference, “The Alchemy of Democracy” in California (June 2004) and, in 2009, The Economics of Peace Conference in Sonoma, CA. Georgia continues to create educational programs for Praxis Peace Institute as well as leading workshops in Conflict Resolution.

A long-time active citizen, Georgia has chaired many issue-based political organizations and educational forums. She chaired the Marin County chapter of Jerry Brown’s presidential campaign in 1992 and was a delegate at the Democratic National Convention that year. Since 1988, Georgia has spent considerable time in the Balkans and has published several articles on the region. She is also a harpist, composer, writer, and recording artist who founded her own record label and distribution company in 1978. Website: www.georgiakelly.com