Educational

In the challenging  period following  a severe global pandemic, the World Youth Orchestra Foundation has undertaken a project dedicated to widespread musical education. This initiative aims to support and promote musical culture among young people by creating an educational framework facilitated by young musicians from the World Youth Orchestra. In their roles as junior instructors, these musicians bring music, singing, and musical instruments to many children in extremely disadvantaged social contexts. Their enthusiasm and teaching abilities contribute to fostering a love for music and providing educational opportunities.

WYO4CHILDREN

The Wyo4children project aims to offer musical experiences to children from difficult backgrounds. Previous musical knowledge is not a prerequisite, since the primary objective is to help their individual and social growth through an activity such as music, an art that can work deep within the human being. Examples of these activities include instrument lessons, the formation of a community choir and introductory music lessons, along with interactive games.

Young musicians and artists are responsible for conducting weekly lessons for both individuals and groups in designated contexts. They collaborate with local NGOs, organizations, and associations to ensure the program's effectiveness in supporting these children.

The WYO Foundation provides each junior instructor with a specific methodology, and musical instruments are donated to the entities in need. The project was carried out between 2021 and 2022  in Morocco specifically in Fes at the Orphanage in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Morocco and the association Friends of Fez Orphans. Similar centers have been set up in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly in Sarajevo, in partnership with SOS Children’s Villages, and in Beirut for families from disadvantaged social backgrounds.

2024 - Vietnam

This project is dedicated to the orphaned children at the Home of Mother's Love in Binh Duong, Ho Chi Minh City. Under the guidance of skilled music instructors, the children engage with the transformative power of music through weekly lessons in choir, violin, piano, guitar, percussion, and music theory. A wide array of musical instruments has been supplied to enhance their musical journey. Through Wyo4children, disadvantaged children in southern Vietnam are given the opportunity to work with their emotional world and in a broad social context.

PARTICIPATORY METHOD OF MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

Nowadays, musical performers, those who have to recreate an artistic work based on fixed sheet music, are challenged to convince a demanding public that this art can become an integral part of the human experience. For this reason, musical performers are mainly accountable to the artistic work to recreate the work from scratch every time and during every performance, thus giving it back the ability to penetrate into the sensorial, mental and spiritual experience of the listener.

For the artistic act to be always alive, performers should first of all widen their knowledge not only from a formal and technical point of view, but also by carrying out an accurate musical and artistic research, which explores all the possible cultural, social, philosophical and spiritual connections that lie behind the musical creation. Secondly, artists/performers need to enhance their perceptual ability and to improve their listening skills to better understand the musical act. In this way, they can keep a completely objective approach towards the observed work. This deep observation can lead to the creation of a real image in the performers’ memory, which can be retrieved and reprocessed through imagination during the creative phase of their work. During the following step, performers will have to manage to make the work of art live again without dominating it with their personality and, at the same time, without being possessed by it, thus finding a good balance so that the performance can be a real artistic creation. Thanks to these new processes, artists/performers can more and more develop their creative skills and let go of stereotypical, conventional and mechanical forms so that the musical work of art can live again and regain its communicative power.

The Participatory method of musical performance aims to give a small contribution to a necessary path intended to innovate the music performance practice through a project that is based on a participatory collaboration between all the musicians/performers. They will share with more freedom and more responsibility, their talent, ideas and individual work of artistic research with the aim of giving back to the interpretative act an extremely creative power, which is nowadays often lacking. The Participatory method of musical performance is based on a new form of participatory collaboration between all the musicians taking part in a musical performance and on the balance between the assigned responsibility and the cognitive and expressive freedom of every performer. The absolute foundation of this path is represented by individual training, learning, artistic and cultural research, which is necessary to reach a higher awareness and knowledge of the musical essence. Being open to the ideas and the proposals of all the people taking part in the re-creation of the musical work is another essential aspect that should be present during the group work.

Methodological tools

The study and personal research in the fields of musicology, history, sociology and philosophy is the essential basis to start the process. Listening to others free from preconceptions is an essential term. Every personal contribution to the work must have a character of concreteness and is organized into three phases:

First Phase – Study, research and sharing
Second Phase – Core rehearsal
Third Phase – Tutti rehearsal