EL PAÍS openly offers the América Futura section for its daily and global information contribution to sustainable development. If you would like to support our journalism, subscribe here.
Aylén Flores adjusts the violin, adjusts the bow and the sweet sound begins to flow without pause. “When I heard my teacher play for the first time, I totally fell in love,” she will later say with a smile on her face. At his side, Santiago Ortega (24) and Geraldine Lara (21), with their instruments at their sides, discuss the notes on a staff and discuss a composition, while the young cellist Jonatan Terrazas (20), who has just arrived for rehearsal, joins them in silence. The scene takes place in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, in an area where there are a lot of people. There, a hundred young people, adolescents, boys and girls fascinated by classical music are preparing for the third edition of the Villera Opera Festival, which will take place at the beginning of November.
“With music, inequality is reduced,” defines Mailén Ubiedo Myskow (Buenos Aires, 34), graduate of composition at the Catholic University of Argentina and coordinator of the Argentine Solidarity Artistic Center (CASA), made up of a group of teachers who teach music workshops . All the disciplines that make up the opera (music, dramaturgy, costumes and character portrayal) for about 180 boys and girls from the Fátima and Padre Ricciardelli neighborhoods, two of the most modest settlements in the city of Buenos Aires.
The initiative was created in 2010 when Ubiedo Myskow completed his university studies. Together with a group of colleagues, he began giving workshops in at-risk neighborhoods. “Music has always had a social calling for me,” he says. “I am privileged, I have been able to study whatever I wanted, but there are people who are not affected by this reality and it would be good if they had access to it,” she hopes.
Mailén Ubiedo Myskow.Silvina Frydlewsky
Thirteen years later, the project already has more than 20 teachers and, in addition to producing the first Villera Opera Festival, they give impetus to the artistic careers of young people who have just finished school: several of their students went to conservatories to study music professionally, others are students at the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón – the prestigious Argentine opera house – and one of them, Nashy-Nashai, just won the reality show La Firma on Netflix, a talent show that was in search of the big characters of the urban genre in Latin America.
Music against inequality
For Santiago, the first day he played the trumpet at the age of 13 is unforgettable. His body was vibrating, he remembered eleven years later. “It’s a unique experience,” he says during a break in rehearsals. No one in his family was dedicated to music and he was the only one who turned to a youth orchestra workshop in his neighborhood, fascinated by the magic of the instruments. Ortega, who just took part in the workshop coordinated by Ubiedo Myskow this year, is looking forward to participating in the festival, which will take place from November 4th to 12th. “I’m composing things I’ve never done before, it’s good to try new things,” he reflects.
Dozens of children aged 10 to 18 and older teenagers take part in the rehearsals and workshops. This happens on property owned by the La Verónica Foundation, where homes for women who have been victims of violence and live in the homes are run from Monday to Friday. On Saturdays it is the headquarters of the CASA project, where, in addition to the composition workshop, the disciplines of dramaturgy – a key piece of opera -, characterization and costumes are also promoted.
Young people work on making costumes in one of the CASA workshops on September 2nd. Silvina Frydlewsky
Tatiana Solorzano (21) was Mailén’s student and thanks to her she got to know CASA. Although she wanted to study cardiology as a teenager, when she enrolled in the courses she discovered that her true passion was artistic makeup and costumes. Now she is studying characterization at the Teatro Colón and dreams of making the complete costumes for a play.
For Ubiedo Myskow, music is a tool to reduce inequality and show young people that music can be their livelihood. For this reason, he emphasizes that art can be sold as a product. “They can work in film, theater or television regardless of whether they were born in a working-class neighborhood,” he reflects. “What we do goes beyond art,” says the teacher, who clarifies: “In these neighborhoods, art is an excuse to meet, to accompany children who have very complicated economic realities in which the lack of money is a common one The denominator is “There are also situations of violence, abuse and in many cases they live in overcrowded conditions.”
Young people take part in a CASA art workshop at the premises of the La Verónica Foundation. Silvina Frydlewsky
“That’s what I want for my life.”
At the end of the Covid quarantine – which caused devastating damage to the informal settlements of Buenos Aires due to living conditions – the Villera Opera Festival was launched with the aim of exhibiting the entire artistic production of the students. After two editions, the young people are now preparing for the third, which will be carried out jointly by CASA and the Contemporánea Lírica company and will include three 20-minute micro-operas in which three lyrical singers will take part as guests.
The production requires an architecture that is anything but simple: the theater group designs a dramaturgy for the opera; while the musicians are responsible for the composition. For their part, the designers are responsible for the costumes and set design, and the characters take care of the makeup. “It’s something that doesn’t exist, it hasn’t been done. It’s the end of the day for the children and it’s great for us that all the families are coming. There is light, sound… you feel like you are in the Teatro Colón. They tell us: ‘This is what I want for my life,’” says the teacher enthusiastically.
The coordinator sees the next big step as building a dormitory for young musicians, which also includes a home for boys and girls. “We don’t have the commitment from the state that we would like, we are struggling to get our own space because we are now on loan. But the project covers more, it goes beyond the artistic,” he admits.
Young people during one of the festival preparation activities. Silvina Frydlewsky
Pure orchestra
“This is my second festival and I’m taking care of the composition that I want to devote myself to,” says Jonatan Terrazas during a break in rehearsals. Born in Bolivia, he moved to Buenos Aires with his family seven years ago and has been playing the cello for a long time, an instrument he did not know and which completely fascinated him. “It is unusual, it has its complexity, especially in terms of tuning,” explains the young man studying at the Astor Piazzolla Conservatory, like Aylén Flores, who learned about the violin three years ago when he heard Mailén play. “I fell in love and wanted to learn because I had never seen or heard a violin before,” he says.
On the other hand, Geraldine Lara knew the violin because some family members played it. “I grabbed it ten years ago and haven’t let it go. The difficulty motivates me to improve,” says conservatory student Manuel de Falla, who has also started giving introductory music courses to children who join the CASA project. A few minutes later they will continue the composition. As the cold Saturday afternoon comes to an end, amidst smiles that never fade, the sound of classical music will take over the small room. There they will shine again despite everything.
The musicians rehearse together on September 2nd in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Silvina Frydlewsky