Big thanks to The City of Bonn, for their invitation to play a 45-minute set of songs from my album Just Because Some Wind Blows in the city’s old marketplace in the shadow of Bonn’s beautiful Town Hall.

Also, Bernadette and I were so pleased to see many old friends from both the City and so many of the 20 plus UN entities that along with the more than 100 sustainability-focused NGOs make this pretty city so international.

It was a bit like coming home for me, and to an extent Bernadette. In 2014 I moved to Bonn from Nairobi, Kenya leaving the UN Environment for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which is headquartered in this Rhineland city to help get the landmark Paris Climate Agreement of 2015.

Bernadette and I first sang together that year in the very first Save the World festival that brought together artists and experts on climate change and related challenges. I was also a regular with pals like John Hay at the wonderful Bonn Folk Club.

So among cities and places in the world that I truly love, Bonn is very high on the list.

2023 marked the 50^th anniversary of Germany joining the United Nations and Bonn is without doubt Germany’s UN heartbeat. To mark the day, I dedicated several of songs to different UN agencies located there including the UNEP-hosted Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the UN climate secretariat, UN Women and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

We look forward to playing another gig in Bonn with the full band with cello, saxophone and trombone where we will play a set including songs from my album and Bernadette’s soon to be launched new album—Visionäre Leere—at the Over the Border Festival on March 22 at Harmonie.