EDITORIAL
Stronger Together: An Enduring Leitmotif

 
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EDITORIAL
Stronger Together: An Enduring Leitmotif

Christine Rhomberg, Director of Music for Social Change at the Hilti Foundation, 2013-2025

10-01-2025

More than 12 years ago, during my first visit to the then-fledgling Sinfonía por el Perú program, I met a boy—let’s call him Juan—who stood out from the crowd of children. Not only because his double bass was more than twice his size. It was also his charisma, the joyful enthusiasm with which he played his giant instrument, and, even then, his social skills and his attentive devotion to his fellow musicians at his núcleo in the La Victoria district of Lima, Peru.

Christine Rhomberg.

Over the years, we met again and again, and I began to follow his progress. Later, I got to know his parents and his two sisters. Like everyone else in this district, they lived in very modest circumstances, but you could sense how proud they all were of the young musician, even though they didn’t seem entirely sure whether the devotion to music really made sense for him to pursue. But Juan had a vision. “I don’t want my family to have to live here forever,” he said in a conversation with me, when he was 14.

After finishing school, a scholarship offered him the opportunity to study in Colombia. He completed his bachelor’s degree in the shortest possible time, and in June of this year, he completed his master’s degree in double bass in Barcelona. During these years, being so far away from home was a challenge, for his family as well as for him. Nevertheless, they admired his courage and determination—values epitomized by his mother, who had pursued vocational training so that she could actively contribute to the family’s income.

Juan’s vision came true. In 2024, the family was able to move into a new apartment. “Our son’s journey has changed our life as a family,” they wrote to me in a letter, “and we understand how important it is to encourage children’s dreams, and not block their paths out of prejudice!”

Why am I telling this story? Because it must be told. Because it does not stand alone. Stories like this abound, but we know too little of them, and we hear them too rarely. It is stories like these that demonstrate the importance of music, and the arts in general, not only for the development of young people but also for their families and communities. It is stories like these that illuminate how the impact of the arts can drive social change.

All of us who work in this field know these stories; they represent the main objective of our programs. But this is a message that often goes unheard among those who make the big decisions regarding the education of our children. On the contrary, they eliminate creative subjects in school curricula or reduce them to a minimum. The funding of community arts programs is left to private foundations and supporters.

We can complain about this, or we can take action and set out to change the situation. “Let’s join forces!”—this is the message I want to leave behind, after my 13 years as the person responsible for “Music for Social Change” at the Hilti Foundation, whose mission is to empower people in need to lead self-determined lives, and to foster impactful change on critical environmental issues.

Joining forces has been a guiding principle of my work. We have created and promoted networks in the area of socially motivated music programs; with the Academy for Impact through Music, we initiated a project that aims to influence the entire ecosystem and supports programs in shaping their activities even more clearly toward their intended impact.

We are also involved with the Community Arts Network (CAN) and the European Association for Socially Engaged Arts (ASEA), initiated by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon. ASEA is an association of several European foundations who have joined forces to strengthen programs and initiatives and to communicate their impact to the public and decision-makers in a more targeted and professional manner, thus shedding new light on the importance of art and culture for the positive development of our society. There are hundreds of programs and institutions worldwide that share this goal and perform fantastic work. But their message has still not reached the right places, in order to give the community arts sector the importance it deserves and thus the support and funding it needs to survive.

If we want to achieve this, we must do it together and tell stories like Juan’s. Stories that happen every day around the world. These stories can be compelling, at least as much as facts and figures can be—especially if we join forces so that our voices come through loud and clear. And urgent.

Academy for Impact through Music, Arts Advocacy, arts and society, Arts Funding, Arts Impact, Barcelona Studies, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Children’s Dreams, Christine Rhomberg, Colombia Studies, Community Arts Network, Community Development, Creative Education, Double-Bass, Education Policy, European Association For Socially Engaged Arts, Family Support, Global Music Programs, Hilti Foundation, Joining Forces, Juan’s Story, La Victoria Lima, Music Education, Music for Social Change, October 2025, Overcoming Challenges, Power Of Music, Scholarship Opportunity, Sinfonía por el Perú, Social Change, Storytelling For Change, Youth Empowerment

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