On January 15th the International year of astronomy was officially opened at UNESCO in Paris. President M. Koichiro Matsuura announced that Jean Michel Jarre has been appointed ambassador for the year of astronomy. He also said Jarre "will perform a outdoor concert on the Canary Islands in July", but this has not been officially confirmed yet.

To check the official status at the project Dr. Garik Israelian, world famous astronomer and formal organizer for the concert, was contacted yesterday and asked for an explanation, which is as follows:

"I were with Jean Michel in Paris during the inauguration. We are almost everyday in contact with Brian (May) too. There are MANY supporters of this event. Jarre is also doing as much as he can for this event, but we all know that it's no easy. Next week we've got series of meetings in Madrid with politicians, Ministers and important and powerful enterprises. We have found also an astronomer, friend of mine, who is working in the Parlament; is a good guy and he is going to help us very much. Like you see, here we are fighting for the concert. We are very happy with the format of the concert and with more things about the event. We'll see what happens, but I'm still optimistic".

Today media in The Canary Islands stated that singer and drummer Phil Collins may join May and Jarre on stage. This was claimed by Francisco Sánchez, who is director of the Canary Islands Astrophysical department. Nobody in the concert organization has commented on this claim yet.