Diseño del programa

After months of work behind the scenes and four days together in Dundee, Scotland, a 95-musician orchestra made up of Big Noise and YOLA musicians—plus 100 younger Big Noise members forming a choir—came together on stage at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall for the Festival’s Family Concert on August 16, 2026.

It was a beautiful moment. But even before they ever shared the stage, the young musicians from Scotland and Los Angeles had achieved something remarkable.

Music possesses the power to transcend borders and unite hearts. That’s why, last month, a hundred children in Vanimo, Papua New Guinea packed their instruments to bring their music to Jayapura, Indonesia. It was a historic milestone: the first international tour for the students in the Queen of Paradise Project, launched seven years ago by Music Director Jesus Briceno with the support of Father Miguel de la Calle. Father Martin Prado is now the CEO of the project.

Something special happens when young musicians are invited to trace the roots of their art form to its source. This October, a group of high school students from Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play education initiatives had the rare opportunity to do just that through a cultural exchange of jazz and blues music in Clarksdale, Mississippi. 

What is possible when you plant seeds?

That is the question the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM) team posed to parents after a week of working with children and teachers at Escuela Iniciación Musical de Santa Cecilia (EIMSC), a school one hour south of Oaxaca City, Mexico in Colonia Vicente Guerrero.

“It gave me great peace of mind to know that there are such capable and inspiring people whom I can turn to when I face problems that I cannot solve on my own.”

This was how one of my peers reflected on our three days together in Milan last August. Her words got to the heart of a question I had been thinking about for some time: 

What keeps a network alive?

The image is jarring: a vibrant green lawn scattered with brass instruments in various forms of disrepair, some rusted, others broken or bent. A few rest in old cases with broken hinges. This video was shared by Kyewalyanga Fredrick (Freddie), founder of Saved by Music Foundation, a nonprofit in Uganda that serves 111 children between the ages of 8 and 16. Alongside shelter, food, healthcare, and school fees, the program teaches music through the Elgon Youth Brass Band that rehearses every day. Unfortunately, like a majority of programs in the region, Saved by Music Foundation does not have enough playable instruments for all of its students.

In the beginning of the war on Gaza, I was displaced from my town of Beit Hanoun at 3 a.m. We were running, without shoes, without anything. We arrived in Jabalia, near Gaza City. I was not thinking about music; I was just running for a safe place.

Almost a hundred years ago, as construction began on the majestic Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium, Director Marcel Cuvelier walked through the construction site with a dream. “I always thought of giving concerts for young people,” he later wrote. “When I walked like an insect in that huge frame that would become a concert hall, meeting rooms, offices, halls…I thought about an audience that is demanding, worthy of respect, living: young. I could already hear the shouts and the applause.” 

In Nancy Fraser’s framework, social justice requires both redistribution (economic resources) and recognition (cultural and symbolic status). Symbolic recognition is the validation of one’s identity, dignity, and self-worth within a broader socio-cultural context. And in 1990s Medellín—our time—young people faced material deprivation and severe symbolic misrecognition, viewed solely through the lens of urban violence, stigma, and invisibility. 

One of our longest-standing members asked a question at a meeting this year that I still cannot answer well. He had rehearsed four or five pieces for our concert last December. On the afternoon itself, he participated in playing only one of them. He wanted to know how that had come about. He put his question to everyone in the room.