MTSU and its Confucius Institute will be among the sponsors of a glorious celebration of Murfreesboro’s growing ethnic and cultural diversity.

The ’Boro International Festival will start at 10 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 10, at Cannonsburgh Village, 312 S. Front St. in Murfreesboro.

The event is free and open to the public.

A children’s parade of flags, followed by a community sing-along of “We Are the World,” will kick off the festivities.

Groups from China, Thailand, Laos, India, Iran, Panama, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Ecuador, Italy and South Sudan will be represented.

Craft merchants and food vendors will provide varied multicultural items for sale. Booths displaying interactive exhibits and historical items will illustrate aspects of the cultures represented at the festival.

Fashions native to the nations represented will be on display at an international fashion show. A children’s game area will be available where youngsters can play international games and create crafts representative of other countries.

MTSU’s Center for Chinese Music and Culture will provide music from a quartet of Chinese musicians playing traditional instruments, including a hammer dulcimer, a two-stringed fiddle, bamboo flutes and a zheng, which is a plucked instrument with 18 to 23 or more strings and multiple bridges.

“This will be the first performance of me with three Chinese musicians/teachers/professors who come to work at the center for a year,” said Dr. Mei Han, center director and music professor.

The ’Boro International Festival is sponsored by Reeves-Rogers Elementary School and Murfreesboro City Schools in partnership with MTSU, the Confucius Institute and Murfreesboro Parks and Recreation.

“We are looking forward to the ’Boro International Festival,” said Mike Novak, assistant director of the Confucius Institute at MTSU.

“The Confucius Institute has worked with the local school systems in many ways to celebrate culture, and this should be one of the biggest public celebrations yet.”

The Confucius Institute at MTSU, a resource center for Chinese language, history and culture, works to facilitate engagement with China and create opportunities for exchange and collaboration between communities in Tennessee and China.

For more information, contact Tena Bailey at tena.bailey@cityschools.net.

— Gina K. Logue (gina.logue@mtsu.edu)