Tag: Music

Music as Change Agent

Translated Vase, Yeesookyung, 2015, Art Institute of Chicago

“We are going to change the world with music,” states one of Venezuelan Ron Davis Alvarez’s music students. Alvarez is a 2024 Top Five CNN Hero; he pieced together his free Dream Orchestra to give refugees, immigrants, and native Swedes an opportunity to learn an instrument. Beginning with 13 students, he characterizes his Dream Orchestra as music “family” with 405 current participants who speak 25 different languages in Gothenburg, Sweden. The 3-56 age-range participants rely on music as their common language. Alvarez’ dream is for Dream Orchestra to help people translate traumas through finding joy and compassionate connections in life.   

Native author Louise Erdrich captures the essence of both day/nighttime dreams: “What are dreams but an internal wilderness and what is desire but a wildness of the soul?” Alvarez could agree; he compares playing his violin to electricity. Music and art are energetic change agents; they can electrify both artists and their audiences.

Dreamer Alvarez grew up in a Caracas slum where drugs and violence were commonplace. His family moved frequently. His grandmother’s house was across the street from El Sistema, a free classical music training program for low-income communities. The young Alvarez heard wafting music from musicians practicing. He loved the sounds and learned to play violin at age 10; his zest for music led him to become a teacher at 14 and a conductor by age 16. He started Greenland’s first youth orchestra before settling in Sweden. Part of his Dream Orchestra is composed of refugee teenagers from Syria and Afghanistan who came to Sweden alone.  

Every Saturday his fledgling musicians gather in a church to make electricity. Alvarez defines music education: “It’s about giving you new opportunities [for] learning about life, about challenges, about dreaming, about…connecting you to your soul.”  

Conductor Alvarez bridges different cultures by having students learn a wide range of works from around the world, including many from their diverse homelands. He also teaches Swedish compositions, so students learn about their newfound home. Alvarez and some members of his orchestra help with housing, food, and connection to outside resources and support. This outgrowth from the music comes from the friendships formed. The Alvarez connection with his musicians runs deep: “When someone comes and says, ‘I have this problem,’ then we all have the problem.”

Hansson-Khorsand says he could not have adjusted to life in Sweden without the financial and emotional support he received from Dream Orchestra. Now married and a father to a young son, he has a job helping refugees find work. Alvarez is mentoring him in preparation for studying music at college.

Alvarez’ new dream is finding others to replicate his work. He has supported programs at refugee camps in the West Bank and Greece. Korean artist Yeesookyung also celebrates the beauty of imperfection and “second chances.” Connecting broken shards of pottery delivers a changed vessel.

      Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz

349. When has music helped you cope?

350. In what way has music changed you? 

Summer Stones

Summer is in full swing! July 4th celebration plans are a big draw, although rock music fans flocked to Chicago for an early celebratory weekend with a Rolling Stones concert. Chicago rhythm-and-blues fans Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met in 1961 in London. Initially calling their band Little Boy Blue & the Blue Boys, guitarist Brian Jones snatched their more famous name from Muddy Waters’ 1950 song, Rollin’ Stone. Jones spotted the song’s LP — lying on the floor — just as he was asked by a journalist about the fledgling band’s name.

Also known by their shortened name, The Stones, band members were called to a stage by Muddy Waters for an impromptu jam in 1978. Sample this classic collaboration without having to purchase an expensive ticket: https://news.wttw.com/2024/06/27/rolling-stones-and-chicago-20-memorable-moments-band-s-rich-history-blues-capital-world 

Muddy Waters also inspired other white musicians – Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan are two examples. Dylan’s 1965 song, Like a Rolling Stone, is another Waters’ spinoff. Add the magazine copycat, Rolling Stone.

Copying an early English proverb (from around 1500), “A rolling stone gathers no moss,” an original meaning refers to cutting peat (consisting of sphagnum moss) in bogs to prepare for winter fireplaces. Any itinerant travelers were dubbed “rolling stones” as they did not gather the moss needed for heat. The Rolling Stones original duo –together for nearly 60 years — keeps gathering a fan following. Their beat can heat up memories. I still have my husband’s Rolling Stones LP, Sticky Fingers.

There is something poignant about one’s loss of innocence and encountering the “real” world. Consider The Rolling Stones signature song, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction, first released in the U.S. in 1965. It made Rolling Stone magazine’s “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Times” list in 2021 as #31. Jagger’s comments about his 60’s lyrics are eerily relevant today: “…it captures a spirit of the times…which was alienation.”

I can’t get no satisfaction
I can’t get no satisfaction
‘Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no…

When I’m drivin’ in my car
And the man comes on the radio
He’s tellin’ me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to drive my imagination….

I checked with a friend who went to this weekend’s concert and sure enough, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction was on The Stones’ playlist.

I wonder who might feel satisfaction after watching the presidential debate this past week. Alienation is toppling over in the U.S. today. Itinerant voters may not show up for November’s important election. However, circuitous stepping stones may bring people together. We are an interconnected bunch, although we may not acknowledge our earliest common ancestors. We need more cross-culture collaboration like Muddy Waters and the Blue Boys from London enjoyed. Without such acceptance, we act stone-like to one another. And we get no satisfaction.

Pearls of Peace (PoP) Quiz 

303. How do you define satisfaction in your life?

304. What drives your imagination?