Music in the Community

• What is music’s role in the community?
• How can music be used to bring together communities?

Music can bring together communities from geographical, social and political communities, for example:

Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project. This organisation aims ‘to connect the world’s neighborhoods by bringing together artists and audiences around the globe’. The organisation has been recognised for Best Practices in International Cultural Engagement, for its exchange programmes and educational projects.

Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble formed of musicians from Israel, Palestine and other Arab nations, and which ‘has proved time and again that music can break down barriers previously considered insurmountable’.

El Sistema – a music education programme in Venezuela that reaches 250,000 children, 90% of whom are from poor socio-economic backgrounds. El Sistema has created more than 100 youth orchestras, the most famous of which is the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, who created waves in the classical music world at their BBC Proms debut in 2007: Since 2008, El Sistema has been extended into Venezuelan prisons.

In groups of two or three, research a community music project – possibly from the list above, or another project you are familiar with.

Find out:

1. How is the community music project is funded?
2. What are its social aims?
3. How music helps individuals?
4. How music helps groups within the community?