Alain Besson stood in Paris with his back to the audience and conducted his choir. When he turned around to see thousands of people behind him, holding hands with tears in their eyes, he knew. An unspeakable connection formed between everyone through the music. In that moment he knew he needed to create entire festivals for peace.

Besson has organized peace festivals everywhere that he has lived, including France, Bulgaria and Switzerland, where he was born. All Saints By-the-Sea and Centennial Park are the venues for the Salt Spring Island leg of the tour.

On Friday and Saturday nights, 8 p.m. at All Saints, Tuned Air and Sacred Sound choirs will sing individual selections that include Easter Orthodox original Salt Spring Island compositions before they band together for one killer performance.

“I’m very concerned with peace and I’m very interested to give peace through the music,” Besson said.

“I have this idea that through the music we can really make something for peace because when people sing music or listen to music they become peaceful.”

Two days before the the “mini-festival” begins, Besson is conducting both choirs during one of their final practices. A crowd of 50-some singers — some of whom have been practising these pieces for nearly a year — are tightly packed in front of the organ pipes and about to show off their own. If Mozart’s Requiem is this good now, you can expect at least a few tears in the audience by Friday and Saturday’s intense performances.

“I chose Mozart’s Requiem because it’s the first big masterpiece that I got a chance to conduct with a big orchestra,” Besson said. “It was in Switzerland and it was such a great experience that I decided to record it.”

The conductor/composer/educator has recorded the piece twice already, with the Chamber Orchestra of Lausanne and the National Orchestra of Latvia. This next performance will be totally different, however, because of the English-speaking people singing it and the unique sound found on Salt Spring, he said. Perhaps there is another side-benefit to his repeated Requiem exposure.

“I’m very interested with the healing and it’s proven that this Mozart Requiem has a special healing power,” Besson said. “Frankfurt University does research about it and found that the immune system is better after listening to or singing this Mozart Requiem.”

While the evening concerts are a major draw to the Festival for Peace, daytime activities will be happening throughout the weekend. Synergy will play in Centennial Park at noon on Saturday and Peter Prince will follow at 1:30 p.m.

Then on Sunday afternoon from 1 to 3 p.m., Linda Kavelin Popov and Dr. Dan Popov of The Virtues Project will lead a “Paths to Peace” workshop, also at All Saints.

“The Virtues Project for me is really something very special,” he said. “When I first discovered the book of Linda Kavelin Popov [from Salt Spring] about The Virtues Project I thought ‘Oh wow, I have to meet this person — where does she live?!’”

Besson immediately enrolled his daughter in Salt Spring Centre School, which teaches the United Nations-honoured initiative that inspires kindness, justice and integrity.

“I discovered the joy of the person or the students who study with this project — it’s amazing . . . my daughter receives the prize of joy.”

Like the many new spirits attracted to Salt Spring each year, Besson may leave, but he plans to always keep an eye on the island and the talent he has met here. The next stop on his journey of peace sharing is in Sherbrooke, Quebec, where he plans to continue to organize peace festivals that might include larger-scale events like the World Days of Peace he spearheaded in France prior to his arrival on Salt Spring.

“I think I’ll keep in touch with this island because I feel that something’s happening here,” he said.

“It will be really nice to see what could happen on the island for peace.”