Hope Is A Verb - Ron Davis Alvarez - The Dream Orchestra

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Meet Ron Davis Alvarez, a musician, teacher and conductor who created The Dream Orchestra to help refugee children and teenagers forge connections in their host country. This is a story about the power of music to bring people together, to open our hearts and to believe in the possibility of a better future. To find out more: Website: https://dreamorchestra.se/ Go-Fund-Me:  https://www.gofundme.com/f/ron-davis-alvarez-dream-orchestraVideo: https://youtu.be/7i63Kqulb-w?si=arT6lbJ4iXH2EdUZ CNN Heroes: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/16/world/his-love-of-music-is-helping-refugees-and-immigrants-build-new-lives?cid=ios_app About Hope Is A Verb Hosts: Angus Hervey and Amy Davoren-Rose Sound Design: Anthony Badolato, Ai3 - Audio & Voice

Hope is a reminder. It's the fuel of your soul. It's so much more infused with action. Ability to see a much better future. You really have to earn it to have it. Hope is happiness. Welcome to Hope is a Verb, a podcast about what it takes to change the world through conversations with the people who are making it happen.

I'm Amy. I'm Amy. I'm Gus. And in each episode, we shine a spotlight on the ordinary heroes who are stitching our social fabric together, mending our planet and creating solutions to some of today's biggest global challenges. In this episode, one man's vision for an orchestra that brings people together and harnesses the power of music to change the world. The music is a powerful tool to take you out from the darkness, to bring you to your deep soul. Music will tell you how to get a new friend without speaking the same language. But the most important is music can save you

when you feel that you're going to die. Every now and then you come across a story that makes you feel like anything is possible. And that's exactly how we felt when one of our subscribers sent us an article about something called the Dream Orchestra. What makes this orchestra extraordinary is that most of its musicians have never played an instrument. The group is made up of young refugees and asylum seekers from places like Syria, Afghanistan,

Albania and Somalia. It was started by musician Ron Davis Alvarez in 2016, when he was working in Sweden as the artistic director of El Sistema, a revolutionary music education program that changed his life as a child when he was growing up in the favelas of Venezuela. This conversation is a story about full circles, semi-quavers and the power of music to create a shared language between local communities and refugees. Ron's passion is nothing short of infectious

and we are so happy that you are here to share in his magic. Ron, welcome. It's great to meet you. Good morning. How are you? Great. We're really excited to have you on the show and we wondered if we could kick off by asking you a pretty simple question. Is there a story that is giving you hope right now? a pretty simple question. Is there a story that is giving you hope right now? Actually, I do believe the bigger hope today I have

is when the people meet together to do things better for the community. That gives me hope because I know there are many people that are doing things around the world and sometimes they are not spotlight. And that's why I meet every day with my students and I feel that made me really, really feel that things can be better,

especially in this time where we are living. So I do believe that we have to look. We have to really look into it and that made me a lot of help. Is that something that you've always believed, that it's this coming together of people that gives you hope? I grew up with so many people around, even if my family is very small. Maybe because I'm from Venezuela, the people like always to open the doors and gathering together. And I believe in the power of the community and the

people and how the people can get together. So I think I grew up with that feeling ideas and I got from my family but also from the school where I was and so I think it's coming from there. Ron, this instinct of bringing people together in a community is very much at the heart of everything that you do now. Can you take us back to that moment at the train station in Stockholm in 2015 when you decided to create the Dream Orchestra? If I close my eyes, I still remember that moment because it was a moment where I see something that I never seen before

and it was so many kids and young people arriving with a really strong, sad face. You can see they were so traumatized by the situation. And I knew it in that moment. It was one of the biggest crises of refugees in Europe. I knew that. But I never imagined how they actually arrived to the place. And it was very shocking for me. It was people giving water and bananas. There was people saying, going this way, going this way. And,

you know, the feeling of Central Station is like moving people around. And imagine so many unaccompanied minors arriving to a place with one bag, some of theirs with no bags, knowing no language at all. So I was like, sorry, but what is happening? And one person that was kind of volunteer tell we are receiving a lot of young people from Afghanistan and from Syria. And so we are just located them where, what city they are going to go.

And to see their face, like they don't know, they just was waiting to someone to say, you go there and you go to this city and you go to the other city. And I say, I know I can do something. I know from my experience that music can really give you love and can give you feel of safety. Then I said, I will start to knock doors

to see how I can help that was my mind I just when I saw them I wanted to help and that's the way that I think I could because music is what I I do when you tell this story it sounds like a scene from a movie but I'm sure that turning this into a reality couldn't have been easy I mean Sweden isn't the country that you grew up in and trying to do anything in a country that is not your home is hard enough, let alone facing 13 teenagers in a room who don't speak the same language, have never played an instrument. How did you take all of that and turn it into an orchestra? Well, it was very difficult first to convince people that I want to make an orchestra with this company of minors and kids who are arriving from Syria, from Afghanistan.

And actually, I'm planning to do it for free. The first answer I remember was like, we cannot do an orchestra right now because orchestra is not in our priority. orchestra right now because orchestra is not in our priority. We need to find a place and food and maybe orchestras will be an extra activity later. And I say, listen, but I do believe that if they have an activity who will help them to connect, the journey will be more, more, I will not say more easier because it's already difficult, but it will help in so many ways even to learn the language. And then it was an organization who have houses where some of

the students were there and a school. And they told me, oh, Ron, maybe you can come and show the instruments and we'll see what happens. I asked some friends to borrow some instruments. I took a viola and cello and violins, and then I came to the room. I say, hi, my name is Ron. I'm from Venezuela, and I want to show you some instruments, and I play for them. I choose music from their country. I took one music from Afghanistan,

and then I played some classical music as well, and some from South America. Just to give the picture of the music can be really open and so big. And then we start the class that day, and they didn't understand me when I speak. So I was speaking in English, and they were not really understanding. So I said, no need translation. I speak body language. So we do like this.

And I was explaining them by movement and by colors and by pictures. But the instrument speaks by itself. I mean, you hear a violin and you know it is a violin. If you don't know the name, you know it's an instrument. We started that class that day with the 13 students. They stayed there. And I remember to tell them, guys, today, from now, two weeks more, we have a concert. They told me later when they continued with me in the orchestra room,

when we met you the first time, we were thinking this guy is a little bit crazy. I do have to ask, two weeks later, what was that concert like? Well, it sounds actually really good. We play for many, many kids in a tent where we have a concert. And it was really good because one of the kids, his name is Aziz, didn't come like the last three days. And I was like, why Aziz didnIST come to the general rehearsals that we have in the place because it was not in the school. I met on the streets one of his good men or good parents in Sweden, called good parents, person who are not their parents and need

to take care of them. And I say, hey, are you ASSIST parents? Why didn't ASSIST come today? I've been calling and oh yes, I'm so sorry. He told us that he had a concert in two days and I mean we said it cannot be possible, you don't play a violin how you can have a concert in three days? And then

I say no, no, he's going to play. No, no. And then the guy at Rose told me you don't understand, he never played the violin. And I say no, no, the one who don't understand is you. He's going to play the violin. Finally, he understood that, yes, he's going to play the violin after two weeks. And they play open string, of course. Open string you call when you don't put the fingers. And they play open string. And then I was doing the melodies. And we played in a concert, we played two pieces. It was really, really good. I remember that moment. It was raining because it didn't rain a lot. And I think there's when we really start to get into

what does an orchestra look like. Yeah. It sounds like you have such strong memories, and those memories are so vivid for you. What happens after the initial momentum fades and the excitement is over and you're now one maybe two years into something like this and you've got a program and you're up and running but you're you're hitting big challenges and you're meeting all these roadblocks what did this look like then yeah the the first

moments the kids still not open to you and they don't speak the language and in the beginning the happiness and then they're all learning the instrument and things like that but then the sky become a gray sky and become a little bit dark all of them bring back with so many difficulties that they left and so many things that they bring with sadness and problems and then they start to get to know them and they open and they open with the love but they open also with all the sadness and that they are bringing and and that's something that you want to embrace and support but it's it's not easier it's very. And at that moment in 2016 and 17, there was bombings in their areas. Become the darkness because they start to lose their family. And then plus that,

then migration come. And I think that's even worse because everything got much better. And then someone tells you, you cannot stay here. You have to leave. There was 11 or 12 deportations. A lot of students, they have to leave the house where they were getting support. And then we started to get a lot of kids in the orchestra with no house at all. And they have to leave because the numbers say, oh, you are almost 18 next year. It's so hard. And I think that is the dark part of all this love that they want to make and share.

And I say it's been a stop because now we have our Ukrainian students dealing with the same thing. No personal number. It's like identity number. It's very difficult. And I'm not saying this only Sweden. I mean, I'm talking in general, how the world is treating refugees, how the world is

putting this question on the table. I think it's important to have in mind that people is not numbers. You have so much to bring to the countries that you are. Of course, you bring in your sadness, your happiness and everything, but we have to treat better people. I mean, it's something that we have to have in mind. And that's, I think, the dark part of these days. How do you describe the mission of the Dream Orchestra? Because this isn't about taking these kids and turning them into professional musicians. No, we don't want them to become a professional musician. We want to be a safe place, number one,

where they can dream about what they want to be in the future, where we can develop socio-emotional skills during the process. We want to develop global citizenship inside of the orchestra where the people believe about and think about others and use the music as a tool for social change.

We want to use the music as this important channel to get to know people, just to be in a safe place with people who care about you and think about you and people who know why you didn't come to rehearsal. And that relation, the someone in asking, why didn't you come?

Everything okay. That makes a complete difference. I love this idea. And the other part of your mission that I find really interesting is that you now involve the local community as part of this orchestra, that it has become an orchestra for everyone. Can you tell us about that? Yes.

We start with the young refugees and we open up to the people from the community because we don't want a refugees orchestra. That would be a really bad message. We want to have an orchestra where people who is arriving to the new countries can meet with the students and people from the area so they can speak this language and meet with other people who are ready from here so they can know how the country working that's when this interaction come because they come from different world so I think our mission is to create a better future for people and we create together I mean we create this moment where people can feel I want to create a better future for people. And we create together. I mean, we create this moment where people can feel,

I want to be a doctor. I want to be an artist. I think there's no limit. When you have some people who empower you and say, you can do this and we can help you. I think it's no limit. And that's why we want to do Andrew Marquez. I think it's not limited.

And that's why we want to do a dream orchestra. As a parent myself, I keep thinking that if this was my son who arrived by himself in a new country under the most horrible of circumstances, how much comfort it would bring me to know that there was someone like Ron there to help him, to offer that support and that care and a feeling of family. For me, it's about the power of music to bring people together and I know that sounds obvious but when you hear Ron speaking about it, it just comes to life. We've shared

stories in the newsletter about people like the cellist of Sarajevo and other artists and musicians who play in the wreckage of wars to bring some light to the darkest of times and to remind people of their humanity. And that is totally the energy that I'm getting from this conversation. Here's something I'm wondering as you're telling some of these stories. You are changing these kids' lives by doing this, but I imagine that those children have also changed the lives of many of the adults who've been involved. These kids and youth and the people from Dreamer Keshe have been changing more my life

than what I feel they've been changing there. We have some students who become architects studying. We have others who work in restaurants as a manager. So many stories that make me happy. But at the same time, when these kids have immigration visa problems, we have been sleeping on the floor, we have to hear the bad things to be able to change that. You know, it's not about your life. It's about the life around you. Yeah. We wondered if we could switch tack a little bit here. I want to ask you a few more questions about yourself, if that's all right.

Yes. The first question in this is, what does the word hope mean to you? That's a very good question. I wake up every morning with hope. I'm a very positive person. I know there's so many bad things around, but things can be better. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But if we start to work today, maybe that will be better. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but if we start to work today,

maybe that will be better tomorrow. So I think that's, for me, hope. No matter what profession you have, from the people who are journalists, from the people who are musicians, from the people who are politicians, you wake up and you say, I'm going to do something better today for other people.

Then that's the hope for me. That's the really hope. Ron, listening to you speak, this desire to help people, it sounds like it's always been with you. It doesn't sound like a new thing when you speak about it. Is this something that you learned or that happened in your family? Can you tell us a little bit about growing up in Venezuela and what that was like?

I was born in Caracas in Venezuela, in the capital, in a favela, which is a difficult area with criminality. We lost an uncle. He went out one day and he never back. So my grandmother was always thinking that the streets and everything was so dangerous. So my mom was working a lot and my grandmother was always thinking that the streets and everything was so dangerous. So my mom was working a lot and my grandmother said, we have to be busy. And she opened inside of her house kind of a kiosko.

It's kind of a shop, little shop that you sell something on the window. She was selling ice cream, handmade ice cream. And I was helping her after the school. I was seven years old, something like that. And the people from the school of El Sistema, it's a music school or program which is all around Venezuela, who was founded in 1975 by Maestro José Antonio Abreu,

who teach free music for people to take them from the poverty, but also to get better future. The people from that school came to buy ice cream from my grandmother's house. And curiosity come when it was a bus coming into the school. The people who was going inside, they was getting food and they was getting the instruments going.

They were somewhere else and they was back with a big smiling. Parents was waiting on the bus like wow i'm thinking like that i say i want to go to the same bus i i want to go to say i don't know what they are doing in that bus but i want to go to the same bus because it sounds so much fun so i went to el sistema class el sistema school it was one of my best ever class i still remember how was the teacher, how was the people around me. I do remember the daughter of some family of the mayor of the city was in the same class with me and everyone was treated in the same way. For me, it was something that gave me opportunity to dream. Now I can reflect about and I say, listen, this is how life should be working. Everybody should have opportunity and everybody should have this possibility to play together.

It doesn't matter if some people have more possibilities than others because they have a better family or a better economy. And I say, listen, I am here next to the person who maybe has been traveling a lot on holidays. I don't have that privilege, but we're going to travel together to somewhere else because we're going to travel together to somewhere else because we're going to play in the orchestra together. So that changed my life and also showed me that the music can give you a way to dream, give me an opportunity to meet the world. So when I invite my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt to Sweden to see me conducting

2,000 kids or conducting to the queen I say thank you without your support I will not be here so thank you and same as you for El Sistema without learning in El Sistema school in Venezuela I will not be able to share what I shared around the world so that's something that I always be grateful What I love of hearing the story is that in 1975, someone had an amazing idea and brought that to the world. And then that idea traveled through you to the other side of the world, to Sweden, where it got born again in another way. And I'm wondering if there is now a tradition that maybe gets carried on

to the next generation through the children that maybe whose lives you've impacted. I think so, because we already have a student from Dream Orchestra who are helping me to teach the youngest one. And that was the way that I started. I started to teach when I was 14, because I didn't have the money to pay the transport later on to go to other schools. They told me, we can give you a scholarship and you can go to teach. And I started to teach when I was 14 in a kindergarten, music kindergarten of El Sistema. So I think Jose Antonio Abreu, who was our maestro, our mentor, he always mentioned that everything's very good. It has to be the possibility to be multiplied. If it cannot be multiplied, then it's not really good. So there's something I have in my mind. It's like the cells that you have in your blood.

It's multiplied because it's good, and then you can be able to multiply it all the time. If it's something wrong, then it will not be multiplied. Speaking of what can be multiplied, we read that you now have 400 members of the Dream Orchestra. You started with 13 back in 2016. Can you give us an update on where things are at today and what your dreams are for the future?

We want to grow. We want to have opportunity to open more in schools. We also want to support other programs. We already do it. We are supporting and have coaching exchange with Ukrainian. We have also a Palestinian refugee cancer we are supporting and we have the possibility to definitely develop around the world as a message. So some other people can get inspired of the idea and developing in other places. We want to be a learning center where we also can develop other training, teaching.

That's something that we would like to have in the future. We already have a book. This Dream Orchestra is in our website and it's free. We wrote that book to be able to inspire other people. And this is called Dream Orchestra Learning Model. We want to share that to the world. My biggest dream with Dream Orchestra is to reach people and to know that there's a place for them. And also to know that I'm not able to change your migration status, I'm not able to change what you've been passed through,

but I'm able to give you an instrument so you can develop your own voice. How has this work changed you as a musician? So much, because I learned something that music it doesn't need to be classical music it can be any type of music that language if you take it and guide them to to express to the to other people you don't need to make everyone to play but everybody can join so what i've been teaching me as an artist as a musician that is not about to play in a big concert it's not about to play with a big stage it's about what you can do through music what you can do with your music how music can connect us and that for, is what makes me now an artist,

more than just playing for people. It's more like to give a message. I always say to my students, I really want this applause and people clapping to be a message. I want this applause to be strong and better than violence and problems and war and then maybe it's no concert house enough to do it but then you need to do it everywhere you need to do it in the park in the supermarket and with the people that you meet in the in the bus stop and that's I think is my idea of be an artist now is be a teacher is be a conductor is be a person who believe that we are not alone in this planet. We are not alone in your country or in the place you are.

You just need to connect to the people. Ron, you said something at the beginning that there is a lot of crisis in the world at the moment. There's a lot of pain in the world at the moment. Do we underestimate the power of music to heal what is broken? Yes, I think so. I think there are many people who underestimate that music can be really powerful. Music is a powerful tool to take you out from the darkness,

to bring you to your deep soul. And I do believe that music makes us connect to who we are. Music is like the smell of your favorite fruit. Music can be this moment where it will tell you how to get a new friend without speaking the same language. But the most important is music can save you when you feel that you're going to die. I do believe that. And there's a lot of resources about it,

scientific resources, playing the music not only made you clever, but also developed your souls and your heart in a way that connects you to other people. People need to play more music. People should go to more concerts. People should dance more. Art in general, it has to be connecting to more people. Of course, food is important. Play to sleep is important. But there's something that happens when I give an instrument to a person.

When you give an instrument to a child, it's not light in the eyes. Spotlight in the eyes. They become not light in the eyes, it's spotlight in the eyes. They become like stars in the eyes. It's just like shining. People need to experience this because if we give instruments instead of weapons, can you imagine how this world will work or function better?

So this moment, just this moment, I can't go to sleep every night and close my eyes and say, just for this moment, I wake up every morning. It's very important to experience that. This conversation is a reminder that even though tangible problems often require tangible solutions, the power of people like Ron is that they tend to the invisible but very real connections that we all need to survive, that are at the very heart of what makes us human. His gift is giving people a voice, a home, and giving them a space to dream of a much better future. If you want to find out more about the Dream Orchestra, we've popped some links in the podcast notes,

including a GoFundMe if you'd like to support Ron's work. We'd like to thank our paying subscribers for making projects like this podcast possible. If you're interested in finding out more about our work, check out fixthenews.com. There are a lot of podcasts out there. It means a lot to us that you chose this one. This podcast is recorded in Australia on the lands of the Gadigal and the Wurundjeri and Woiwurrung people.

If you enjoyed this conversation and would like to support Hope as a Verb, make sure you subscribe and leave a review. Thanks for listening.