The legendary Yoko Ono won the lifetime achievement award at this year’s Mojo Magazine awards, held in London on June 11, 2009.

The award was the final award of the night and saw an emotional speech from Ono in response to a tribute film shown at the awards and a speech by Mojo editor Phil Alexander, who commented: “Yoko Ono helped change music as we know it….first by introducing avant-garde sensibilities to her husband and secondly, just as significantly, by continuing to push the boundaries of what was deemed the normal way after that. She is a huge influence on modern music and this award recognizes her inspirational qualities and ongoing questing. Yoko Ono is unique and we are thrilled to commemorate her lifetime on the frontline”.

The Mojo award comes in a week when Ono topped the US club charts for the fifth time, this time with her song I’m Not Getting Enough (bit.ly/onoinge), and also received the prestigious Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Biennale.

On accepting the Mojo award, Ono said:

“Thank you very much for this incredible accolade. I feel blessed that, after so many years and decades, my work is getting recognition in such a diverse way. John would have been very proud of me tonight. Thank you!”

On Sunday, Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band make their debut UK performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London, as part of Ornette Coleman’s Meltdown. This performance will feature appearances by guest artists including Ornette Coleman, Antony Hegarty and Mark Ronson.
Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band includes Sean Lennon, Cornelius and Yuka Honda.


Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band's new 4 Track EP "DON'T STOP ME!" is out now, available at the iTunes Music Store.
bit.ly/yodsm

ONO "I'm Not Getting Enough" (2009 Remixes), recently #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart, are out now, available at the iTunes Music Store.
bit.ly/ingeit

Yoko Ono / Plastic Ono Band are featured on Chimera Music Release No. 0, along with Chimera artists Sean Lennon, The GOASTT, If By Yes, and Kemp & Eden.
Out now, also available at the iTunes Music Store.
bit.ly/chimera
More info at chimeramusic.com


Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band’s new studio album “BETWEEN MY HEAD AND THE SKY” will be released on September 21, 2009.

IMAGINEPEACE.com

Yoko Ono was back in Montreal on Tuesday to open "Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko," an exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. (March 31, 2009)


Yoko Ono opens new Montreal exhibit on 1969 bed-in
By Nelson Wyatt, The Canadian Press

MONTREAL – Yoko Ono says she will always remember Montreal's skyline when she thinks about the bed-in for peace she staged with former Beatle John Lennon in a downtown hotel 40 years ago.

"We were in bed and when all the journalists went home around 6 o'clock in the evening, John and I would turn around and look at the sky through a beautiful, beautiful huge window," she said Tuesday.

"We just had great fun looking at the sky, and I always remember that."

Ono was back in Montreal on Tuesday to open "Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko," an exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts which traces the couple's life from their meeting in 1966 to the 1969 bed-in.

"Coming here is a very special thing for me," she told a news conference. "I believe that John is here with me today because we had a great time."

She said the trip to Montreal in 1969 – the bed-in was staged at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel from May 26 to June 2 – was like a honeymoon for her and Lennon, who split from the Beatles after he got together with her.

With its message of world peace, the bed-in was one of the iconic moments of the 1960s. It made headlines around the world and also saw the recording of "Give Peace a Chance," which became an anthem for the antiwar movement.

The diminutive Ono said reporters who sat around – and often on – the bed with her and Lennon played a big part in making "Give Peace a Chance" happen.

"I think that without your help, your vibrations, your spirit, around us, 'Give Peace a Chance' would not have been born," she told the assembled journalists. "Without your remembrances of this happening . . . it may not have been remembered by the world.

"Right now there are so many people who are trying to do bed-ins, and that would not have happened. I think it was a work between John and I and our partnership with Montreal."

She said Lennon, who was murdered in 1980, continued working for peace after the Montreal bed-in as did she.

"I feel I'm doing it with him still."

"Imagine: The Peace Ballad of John & Yoko" runs from April 2 to June 21 and is free to the public. The show includes some 140 drawings, unpublished photos, videos, films and artwork, all amid background music by Lennon.

Visitors will also be able to play "Imagine" on a piano with a sound system, write down their wishes and tie them to Ono's "Wish Tree," and once a day, at an unspecified time, speak on the phone with Ono.

Emma Lavigne, the show's curator, said Ono was very helpful in bringing the exhibit together.

"We have the three very strong elements – politics, music, art – and we really need to have those . . . to understand what the bed-in really was."

Ono, an artist and musician who lives in New York City, said she was pleased the show is free.

"It goes with the idea that peace is for everybody and it isn't something that you have to sell. We share peace together."

She had a simple message for the current generation of young people concerned about wars in such places as Afghanistan and Iraq as she was about Vietnam in the '60s.

"Be yourself, keep dancing, have fun in life and we will all love each other," she said, before telling reporters "I love you" as she left the stage.

Part 4/4: Q&A.

The Q&A finale between Yoko Ono and Stanford students, hosted by Professor Gordon Chang, at Yoko Ono's lecture at Stanford University on 14 Jan 2009.

Exclusively on Vimeo courtesy of Yoko Ono, Stanford University & IMAGINEPEACE.com

Lectures & Films ©2009 Yoko Ono
Video Footage ©2009 Stanford University
All Rights Reserved.

NB
Parts 1/4 and 3/4 are already on Vimeo.
Part 2/4 is the documentary 'Yoko Ono: Passages For Light' also viewable on Vimeo.

Part 1/4: Childhood.

Yoko Ono's lecture at Stanford University on 14 Jan 2009.

Exclusively on Vimeo courtesy of Yoko Ono, Stanford University & IMAGINEPEACE.com

Lectures & Films ©2009 Yoko Ono
Video Footage ©2009 Stanford University
All Rights Reserved.

NB Part 2/4 is the documentary 'Yoko Ono: Passages For Light' also viewable on Vimeo.
Parts 3/4 and 4/4 are also available on Vimeo.

Part 3/4: Five Films and Chair Piece.

Freedom (1971)
Cut Piece (1965)
Cut Piece (2003)
Chair Piece
It's Time For Action (2000)
Outro (2000)

Yoko Ono's lecture at Stanford University on 14 Jan 2009.

Exclusively on Vimeo courtesy of Yoko Ono, Stanford University & IMAGINEPEACE.com

Lectures & Films ©2009 Yoko Ono
Video Footage ©2009 Stanford University
All Rights Reserved.

NB
Parts 1/4 & 4/4 are already available on Vimeo
Part 2/4 is the documentary 'Yoko Ono: Passages For Light' also available on Vimeo.