Orquestra Geração

What does it take to turn a young musician’s passion into a meaningful career? For Sistema Cyprus and Orquestra Geração, the answer lies in real, structured opportunity, tailored to young people who are too often overlooked by traditional systems.

Our two organizations have long collaborated on other successful European projects. Building on that experience, and seeing the similar challenges our students face, we teamed up once more to create the Erasmus+ project “InMus: From Youth to Professionalism.”

When the Rizoma Project launched in 2022 in São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea-Bissau, I knew we were embarking on an ambitious journey. Our goal was clear: to establish social orchestras in communities with limited resources and significant social challenges. 

“Throughout the entire concert, the young musicians were free to laugh. And so was the audience…Music was being felt and lived in another sphere.”

Isn’t this a description of how we would all love our students to experience music, at some point in their learning journey?

The slogan of Orquestra Geração suggests something deeper than just playing music. The idea of touching lives (in Portuguese, “tocamos” means “we play/we touch”) asserts that we can positively transform the lives of children and young people through music, giving them a feeling of unlimited potential. What I didn’t know before teaching in this program was that the slogan would apply to me as well, and that my life would be so intensely touched and transformed.

“Visiting Portugal with my BSA orchestra was a trip full of memories that will never stop coming back to me. It’s amazing how, despite the expected language barrier, there were no walls between us, like we didn’t need words to form friendships because the music and the passion connecting us was enough. The music is the center of it all – why we were there, why we knew each other, why we would see each other days after the trip. It’s incredible how when you love something, you don’t want to stop doing it. After spending almost eight hours playing, barely awake by the end of the day, I still wanted to wake up and do it all over again the next day because I enjoy music; I enjoy playing it, the feeling and the togetherness of the orchestra, the people I meet, the places I get to see, the pieces I get to play, the emotion I get to feel, the memories that are present forever like friendly ghosts haunting my mind, traveling wherever I go, bringing it all with me. I may be in Boston, or in L.A., or in Venezuela, or anywhere in the world, but as long as I have music, and all that comes with it, Portugal will never leave me. It changed me far too much for me to forget.”

This study emerges within the framework of continuing the work undertaken by CIPEM (Research Centre in Psychology of Music and Music Education), in particular its interest in the relationship between music education and music in the community.