Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2017 5:51:50 GMT
Amidst the daily nonsense in the US right now, it's good to be reminded that there are so many good people out there.
"Non-musician Robert Blackson came up with the idea for Symphony For a Broken Orchestra. Blackson, who runs the Contemporary Museum at Temple University's Tyler School of Art, had never done a musical project before. But a few years ago, he visited a Philadelphia public school that was being used as a warehouse for discarded school materials. In one room, he had an epiphany.
"It was a gymnasium that was full of broken pianos and the school district at that time didn't know what to do with them," Blackson recalls.
Blackson says the project has more than doubled its original fundraising goal. Foundations have pitched in and now he's working on establishing a maintenance fund "as these instruments eventually may get broken again," he explains, "there will always be a budget to fix them."
Working on this symphony reminds composer Lang of something fundamental about playing music in a group.
"When you play an instrument in a public school, this is the lesson you are learning." Lang says. "I have a connection to the person next to me and our connection is based on our ability combined to build something beautiful."
"And that's something we really need," Lang says after a pause, his voice filling with emotion.
The day after the symphony's performance, all the instruments will be shipped off to be repaired. Next fall, children in the Philadelphia public schools will open the cases of their flutes and violins and find a note explaining how these wounded instruments were healed."
www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2017/11/30/567064772/the-healing-sound-of-a-broken-orchestra
"Non-musician Robert Blackson came up with the idea for Symphony For a Broken Orchestra. Blackson, who runs the Contemporary Museum at Temple University's Tyler School of Art, had never done a musical project before. But a few years ago, he visited a Philadelphia public school that was being used as a warehouse for discarded school materials. In one room, he had an epiphany.
"It was a gymnasium that was full of broken pianos and the school district at that time didn't know what to do with them," Blackson recalls.
Blackson says the project has more than doubled its original fundraising goal. Foundations have pitched in and now he's working on establishing a maintenance fund "as these instruments eventually may get broken again," he explains, "there will always be a budget to fix them."
Working on this symphony reminds composer Lang of something fundamental about playing music in a group.
"When you play an instrument in a public school, this is the lesson you are learning." Lang says. "I have a connection to the person next to me and our connection is based on our ability combined to build something beautiful."
"And that's something we really need," Lang says after a pause, his voice filling with emotion.
The day after the symphony's performance, all the instruments will be shipped off to be repaired. Next fall, children in the Philadelphia public schools will open the cases of their flutes and violins and find a note explaining how these wounded instruments were healed."
www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2017/11/30/567064772/the-healing-sound-of-a-broken-orchestra
