Youth Symphony Orchestras Forming in the DR

Youth Symphony Orchestras Forming in the DR
Dominican Republic, Santo Domingo, 04/15/2011

The Youth Symphony Orchestra will offer weekly classes in the Santo Domingo  Sabio, a private institution with a fifty-plus years of work in the popular neighborhood Las Cañitas.

When the project known as “The System” went into effect in Venezuela in 1975, there were most likely very few people who thought it would be successful. The concept had a precise goal: to develop a program with children and young people in the poor neighborhoods by encouraging and guiding them on how to avoid the pitfalls that awaited them and to develop a love of learning. Now the Youth Symphony Orchestra Foundation, Inc. has taken the initiative to undertake a similar project in the Dominican Republic.

The Youth Symphony Orchestra will offer weekly classes in the Santo Domingo  Sabio, a private institution with a fifty-plus years of work in the popular neighborhood Las Cañitas. At the same time, the school will put its personnel at the disposition of the students so they can practice under their supervision.  The medium term goal is to extend the project to other schools.

This initiative will encourage more students and young people to get involved in the artistic and educational development with the goal of keeping them far away from drugs and violence that are prevalent today in Dominican society, especially in these localities.

At the same time, they will learn to understand the elements of music and how to read and develop it. They will also learn discipline which has been scientifically shown to increase cognitive capacity in human beings while promoting positive values such as responsibility, discipline, community work, solidarity, identification with groups, mutual and individual challenges.

The initiative is made possible thanks to the financial participation of the German Embassy which is providing instruments – valued at 750,000 Dominican pesos – with which the Foundation can begin to work on the project.

The opening event took placed on March 22, 2011 at the Santo Domingo
Sabio school where the German Ambassador, Christian Germann, and  Felipe Auffant, representing the Youth Symphony Foundation, signed an agreement with regard to the donation.

Seven German musicians, currently on tour performing around the country, also participated in the event. Upon their return to Germany, they´ve committed to collecting more money to put toward the expansion and continuation of the project in the Dominican Republic.