Dr. Greg and Kate Hamilton, string faculty members at Concordia, recently traveled to Argentina to perform and teach. While there, they interacted with impoverished students whose lives were changed through music. At the end of the week, those students changed the Hamiltons. Here is their story.

A bird’s eye view of the city of Buenos Aires on a typical Saturday morning would reveal 17 different youth orchestras rehearsing the entire day. The participants are bright, talented and enthusiastic. But these orchestras are not typical of most cosmopolitan music programs. The capital of Argentina strategically locates orchestral training programs throughout the slums and poor areas of the city.

For one week, we worked closely with student musicians who live in these neighborhoods filled with poverty, suffering and crime.

Known as the Youth Orchestra Project, the program enrolls about 2,000 students. Its mission is to provide children who live in the most dismal neighborhoods a life in music by preparing them as orchestral musicians. Participants attend at no cost and are provided an instrument of their choice.

“If a kid can just play two notes on an instrument, for themselves, we believe their lives will be changed forever,” says Nestor Tedesco, principal cellist of the Colon Theatre Orchestra and a driving force in the success of the Youth Orchestra Project.

It’s a philosophy the government supports. “The struggle for the development of a nation, for productive growth and social science is only truly accomplished when it is balanced by a concerted effort to overcome poverty,” according to the Buenos Aires Ministry of Education Web site.

Nestor sees that happen in a very personal way. “To come to this place on Saturday morning and teach – yes, I love my job in the orchestra, but there are always issues,” he says. “Here, I see my impact on music in my country, in these kids.”

We saw what Nestor was talking about when we first walked into the Villa Lugano School. We were immediately hit with a wave of activity (all of Buenos Aires is filled with movement and commotion!) and we could hear music streaming from all corners of the building. Every classroom was used for lessons and the bigger spaces were set aside for two orchestra rehearsals.

The enthusiasm was contagious. Within a short time after our arrival, we participated in a ceremony where we presented two violins and a suitcase full of string supplies donated by Christian Eggert Violins, Fargo, N.D., and Claire Givens Violins, Minneapolis. This marked the beginning of a weeklong residency of teaching master classes both at the Lugano School and the National Conservatory of Music.

During that week we participated in the filming of a documentary on the Youth Orchestra Project. We appeared as featured soloists along with the Lugano Chamber Orchestra. Throughout the experience we felt a powerful connection to what was going on, never feeling depleted. Interacting with these kids as they experienced life outside of the slums energized us.

Toward the end of our stay, the value of this experience was underscored for Greg in a conversation he had with one of the more talented students in the orchestra, a 19-year-old cellist named Agustina. Knowing that her time at the Lugano School was coming to an end, he asked what her plans were for the next few years. Her answer surprised him. In an upbeat, sincere voice she simply said, “It has been a dream of my mother and I for me to go to college, perhaps in the United States.”

We recognized the amount of courage it took for Agustina, a child who grew up in an impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhood, to say this. This was not a typical teen talking, casually throwing out a plan that had every chance of becoming reality. Agustina had in fact many reasons to doubt that this would ever happen. Her belief that she would realize this dream inspired us to promise Agustina that we would help her achieve this goal, including finding ways she might attend Concordia College someday.

After working for a week in this exceptional program, how could we do otherwise?

Photos: Submitted/Sheldon Green