Global Partnership Leads to Cosmic Collaboration

Ensemble readers will remember that our June editorialist, El Sistema USA Director Elizabeth Moulthrop, brought us news of a new music education curriculum: a joint project between the Polaris Dawn space mission and El Sistema USA.

A few short months later, that partnership dramatically widened—into a concert connecting dozens of earthly youth musicians with a violinist in outer space! On September 13, 2024, astronaut Sarah Gillis played a piece by John Williams while floating inside her spacecraft nine hundred miles above the earth. She was accompanied by musicians from six youth orchestras on four continents: Venezuela’s El Sistema, Brazil’s NEOJIBA, Uganda’s Brass for Africa, Sweden’s Dream Orchestra, BLUME Haiti, and the Boston String Academy in the U.S, along with Los Angeles Philharmonic musicians conducted by Jeri Lynne Johnson. The concert was a fundraiser for the Harmony of Resilience project, a partnership between El Sistema USA, Polaris Dawn, and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Learn more at ESUSA’s website and at PolarisProgram.com.