From the Embers of a São Paulo Favela, Music Grows

 
The Ensemble seeks to connect and inform all people who are committed to ensemble music education for youth empowerment and social change.
 
The Ensemble Newsletter

Regions

Africa

Asia/Oceania

Europe

Latin America

North America

Topics

Teaching & Learning

Program Design

Student Voice & Leadership

Community Building

Collaborations

Funding & Support

Perspectives & Collective Action

News & Resources

From the Embers of a São Paulo Favela, Music Grows

Mauricio Cruz, Institutional Development Manager, Instituto Baccarelli

03-05-2024
The Heliópolis Symphony Orchestra. Photo: Instituto Baccarelli.

For over 27 years, the Brazilian nonprofit NGO Instituto Baccarelli has been supporting social work with children and young people in vulnerable situations in the favela of Heliópolis, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. The Institute has a dramatic founding story: in 1996, after a massive fire devastated the favela, the esteemed choral director Maestro Silvio Baccarelli was moved to begin giving free violin lessons to children whose families had been displaced by the disaster. Shortly afterwards, the small string ensemble that originated the Baccarelli Institute was formed.

Maestro Baccarelli saw music education as a way to restore people’s dignity and hope, and the Institute has continued to use high-quality music education as a path to social transformation, personal development, and professional opportunities in music. Today, the Institute serves 1,450 students, ages 2 through adulthood, free of charge, through a wide variety of ensemble classes, choirs, and individual lessons. We also support a professional orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica Heliópolis, under the direction of Isaac Karabtchevsky; the Heliópolis Youth Orchestra; and the Heliópolis Youth Choir. Maestro Zubin Mehta has been the Patron of the Instituto since 2005.

Distributing food to the community. Photo: Instituto Baccarelli.

One of the main ways we support our community has nothing to do with music. The fight against food insecurity is always critical within the Heliópolis community, but it skyrocketed when the pandemic hit us. In 2020, therefore, we launched the Baccarelli Restaurant project, offering free nutritional food to our students and families. Since then, we have distributed more than 1,000 tons of food. As a signatory of the United Nations Global Pact since 2021, we feel that addressing food insecurity is one of the many ways we can support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

As we’ve grown, one of our main challenges is a lack of adequate space for our students to perform. We always have a full season of concerts for orchestral groups, sectionals, and choruses; some students have the opportunity to step onto a stage, but others still do not. We’ve long dreamed of having our own theater, and that dream is finally going to be realized. We are in the process of building the Baccarelli Theater in the middle of the favela, on a site that integrates it with the buildings of the Instituto. It will feature a complete concert hall equipped with seating for more than 500 people, an orchestra pit, balconies over the stage, and multiple acoustic capacities suitable for different musical modalities.

We hope that, with the completion of this project, the pedagogical process that goes on daily in Heliópolis will complete its cycle by providing full performance opportunities for all of our students and teachers.

The Heliópolis Youth Choir. Photo: Instituto Baccarelli.

This will be significant for our community as a whole—because even though Heliópolis is the largest community in São Paulo, one of the largest favelas in Latin America, and rich in cultural expressions, it has never had a single theater, let alone a concert hall. Our concert hall will be available for all artists in the community, who currently do not have a place of visibility, prestige, and respect. For the first time, the multiple contemporary cultural expressions of one of the largest favelas in the country will have a place to present themselves. Our community artists will gain an equal footing with the most significant artists on the national scene, leaving the peripheral place they now occupy both symbolically and literally. 

Building a stage in the community also means expanding the cultural experience of Heliópolis residents. The theater will present performers and performances from other regions of São Paulo as well, giving residents of the favela their first means of access to the vibrant cultural scene of one of the country’s most important cities. 

Musicianship class for preschoolers. Photo: Instituto Baccarelli.

At the same time, the Baccarelli Institute will continue to use high-quality music education to promote personal development by educating socially and culturally conscious, responsible human beings, as well as to provide professional opportunities in music. We celebrate the results being achieved by thousands of our students and alumni, who are pursuing their professional and personal dreams in many places around the world, with a reaffirmed belief in the transformative power of education and culture.

Brazil, Community Development and Creative Placemaking, Instituto Baccarelli, March 2024, Orquestra Sinfônica Heliópolis, São Paulo, Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations Global Pact

Related Content

Share

ABOUT US MASTHEAD THE AMBASSADORS THE ARCHIVES SUBSCRIBE CONTACT
© Copyright 2022 Ensemble News