"The NATO Hymn" () is the organizational anthem of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

(NATO). It is an

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

piece, composed in 1989 by

André Reichling André Reichling (1 February 1956 – 7 September 2020) was a Luxembourgish lieutenant colonel and the bandmaster of the Luxembourg Military Band between 1986 and 2011. He composed the NATO Hymn in 1989, which formally became the official anthem f ...

, a Luxembourgish military officer and a member of its

military band A military band is a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the tit ...

. It was used unofficially for many years before being formally adopted in January 2018.

History

Initial proposals for adopting an organizational anthem for NATO date back to 1958, its tenth anniversary. A "NATO Song" was publicly performed, but not adopted. In 1960, British

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

marshal

Edward Chilton Air Marshal Sir Charles Edward Chilton, (1 November 1906 – 4 August 1992) was a Royal Air Force officer who served as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Coastal Command from 1959 to 1962. RAF career Educated at Portsmouth Grammar School,

proposed combining members states' national anthems into a single composition as the organizational anthem. In 1989, to commemorate NATO's 40th anniversary, Luxembourgish military band officer

composed an instrumental musical piece titled "The NATO Hymn" and it was performed at an anniversary gala that year. Used as an unofficial anthem at many NATO events in subsequent years, it was formally adopted on 3 January 2018.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:NATO Hymn, The 1989 songs Anthems of organizations

Anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to short ...

Songs about the military