Music over the sea
Music over the sea (spelling: music over the sea) is a non-profit association based in Hedingen , canton Zurich . Musical instruments that are no longer used are collected in Switzerland and then sent to selected project countries. There they serve to set up music schools and youth orchestras. For the first five years, the association was only active in the Dominican Republic , and from 2016 the project work was expanded to other countries.
history
The initiative goes back to the Swiss journalist and organist Cornelia Diethelm , who lived in the Dominican Republic in the 1990s. In cooperation with the Dominican Ministry of Culture and the Swiss Brass Music Association , Cornelia Diethelm set up the first music school and the first youth orchestra in Río San Juan (on the north coast of the Dominican Republic) in 2008 . The association was founded in Switzerland in 2011. In 2019 there are 23 music schools and over 30 children / youth orchestras in the Dominican Republic with around 700 donated instruments from Switzerland. In 2016 the association extended its project work to Colombia and Albania . There are five children's orchestras in Cartagena de Indias and one each in Rrëshen and Korça.
aims
- Enabling children and young people in economically disadvantaged countries to make music
- Create everyday structure and life prospects for children and young people
- Promote a sense of community and mutual respect among young people
- Include parents and society and strengthen their own initiative
- Providing support in building a more just human world
- Prevention against poverty, prostitution, violence, drugs through music.
Projects
- The association collects instruments and thus enables music schools and youth orchestras to be set up in the project countries.
- Regular further training courses on repairing instruments under the guidance of specialists, including the corresponding consumables, ensure the sustainability of the music initiative.
- Master classes and concerts with well-known Swiss musicians in the respective project countries ensure continued cultural exchange.
- The association enables highly talented young people to train as professional musicians.
Web links
- Official website
- Contact organization in the Dominican Republic
- From the screed to the Caribbean , article in the NZZ, February 12, 2016
- Dominican youths play Swiss instruments (Orquesta Nacional de Escuelas Libres, November 22, 2014)
- Instruments from Switzerland are given a second life in the Caribbean (SRF broadcast “Schweiz aktuell” on May 1, 2014)
- Swiss Lady in the Caribbean (SRF broadcast “Kulturplatz” from December 1, 2011)