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Jorge Saenz / AP
Ana Meza, 16, plays a violin made of recycled materials during a practice session with "The Orchestra of Instruments Recycled From Cateura" on Dec. 11 outside Asuncion, Paraguay.
CATEURA, Paraguay -- The sounds of a classical guitar come from two big jelly cans. Used X-rays serve as the skins of a thumping drum set. A battered aluminum salad bowl and strings tuned with forks from what must have been an elegant table make a violin. Bottle caps work perfectly well as keys for a saxophone.
A chamber orchestra of 20 children uses these and other instruments fashioned out of recycled materials from a landfill where their parents eke out livings as trash-pickers, regularly performing the music of Beethoven and Mozart, Henry Mancini and the Beatles.
A concert they put on for The Associated Press also featured Frank Sinatra's "My Way" and some Paraguayan polkas.
Rocio Riveros, 15, said it took her a year to learn how to play her flute, which was made from tin cans. "Now I can't live without this orchestra," she said.
Word is spreading about these kids from Cateura, a vast landfill outside Paraguay's capital where some 25,000 families live alongside reeking garbage in abject poverty.
'We're doing the impossible'
The youngsters of "The Orchestra of Instruments Recycled From Cateura" performed in Brazil, Panama and Colombia this year, and hope to play at an exhibit opening next year in their honor at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Ariz.
Jorge Saenz / AP
Young women carry their instruments along the edge of a polluted stream near a landfill outside Asuncion, Paraguay, on Dec. 11.
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"We want to provide a way out of the landfill for these kids and their families. So we're doing the impossible so that they can travel outside Paraguay, to become renowned and admired," said Favio Chavez, a social worker and music teacher who started the orchestra.
The museum connection was made by a Paraguayan documentary filmmaker, Alejandra Amarilla Nash. She and film producer Juliana Penaranda-Loftus have followed the orchestra for years, joining Chavez in his social work while making their film "Landfill Harmonic" on a shoestring budget.
The documentary is far from complete. The kids still have much to prove. But last month, the filmmakers created a Facebook page and posted a short trailer on YouTube and Vimeo that has gone viral, quickly getting more than a million views altogether.
Making dreams a reality
The community of Cateura could not be more marginalized. But the music coming from garbage has some families believing in a different future for their children.
Jorge Saenz / AP
Nicolas Gomez makes a violin with recycled materials at his home in the Cateura, outside Paraguay's capital of Asuncion, on Dec. 11.
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"Thanks to the orchestra, we were in Rio de Janeiro! We bathed in the sea, on the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. I never thought my dreams would become reality," said Tania Vera, a 15-year-old violinist who lives in a wooden shack by a contaminated stream.
Jorge Saenz / AP
A saxophone repaired with coins and keys by Tito Romero sits in his workshop at his home in Capiata, Paraguay, on Dec. 8.
Her mother has health problems, her father abandoned them, and her older sister left the orchestra after becoming pregnant. Tania, though, now wants to be a veterinarian, as well as a musician.
The orchestra was the brainchild of Chavez. The 37-year-old opened a tiny music school at the Cateura landfill five years ago, hoping to keep youngsters out of trouble. But he had just five instruments to share, and the kids often grew restless, irritating Chavez's boss.
So Chavez asked one of the trash-pickers, Nicolas Gomez, to make some instruments from recycled materials to keep the younger kids occupied.
Come April, the classical stringed instruments that Gomez has made in his workshop alongside his pigs and chickens will be on display in Phoenix alongside one of John Lennon's pianos and Eric Clapton's guitars.
"I only studied until the fifth grade because I had to go work breaking rocks in the quarries," said Gomez, 48. But "if you give me the precise instructions, tomorrow I'll make you a helicopter!"
A young musician tunes his cello, which was made from recycled materials, during a practice session.
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The museum also will display wind instruments made by Tito Romero, who was repairing damaged trumpets in a shop outside Asuncion until Chavez came calling and asked him to turn galvanized pipe and other pieces of scavenged metal into flutes, clarinets and saxophones.
"It's slow work, demanding precision, but it's very gratifying," Romero said. "Chavez is turning these kids of Cateura into people with a lot of self-esteem, giving them a shield against the vices."
'A new meaning to my life'
Ada Rios, a 14-year-old first violinist, greeted the AP with sleepy eyes and a wide smile at her family's home on the banks of a sewage-filled creek that runs into the Paraguay River.
"The orchestra has given a new meaning to my life, because in Cateura, unfortunately, many young people don't have opportunities to study, because they have to work or they're addicted to alcohol and drugs," she said.
In Los Angeles, a trailblazing conductor is determined to instill a passion for classical music in children, hoping that listening to classical music will spur a lifelong respect for the art form. NBC's Diana Alvear reports.
Chavez's kids will be performing at Asuncion's shopping centers during the holidays.
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"We'll get some money, not very much, but it will help these families from Cateura," he said. "They'll be able to enjoy a good Christmas dinner."
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Leave a Comment:
OH MY GOSH! I just listened to a short video of some music played by these children on their musical instruments made from recycled trash. It left me in tears. A moving comment made a child in the video said something so many need reminding of. We shouldn't throw away trash without thinking. We also shouldn't throw away people either.
Here's the link:http://vimeo.com/52711779 to the article so you can listen to their beautiful music yourself. These children are literally living on a garbage pile.They recycling trash, like their parents, to sell, just to survive. How much more blessed are we. To see what they have done, with what little they have in life, is so humbling.
Windancersong,
Thanks for the link. I was amazed at the sound quality of that cello the boy was playing Bach on as well as by how well he played it. It was hard to believe that cello was made of recycled trash. At any rate, I'm sure Mozart would not mind having his music played that way since he was no stranger to poverty himself. In fact, Mozart himself was dumped in an unmarked pauper's grave when he died, possibly in a landfill such as these kids live on.
Windancersong
Thanks for that. Their achievements are truly humbling
What a ray of hope, and journey of overcoming, I wept with joy, and am sharing with everyone I know. It renews my hope and faith in mankind, in this horrible time for our nation. Thanks for the wonderful article, NBC!
This is the kind of news that gives hope in the human race. From trash to Mozart. Beautiful!
I have a very nice violin I would like to donate to these children. It is a Stradivarius copy, a childs violin made in the late 19th century. I have owned it since 1963. If the writer of this story knows how to contact their music teacher please reply to this comment.
I may have other instruments such as a trumpet, clarinet, drums and such, I need to check with my sister to see if she still has them.
you can write them an email here: orquestareciclados@gmail.com
This is the Facebook page from the Children in Cateura (Paraguay)
And this is the Facebook page from the people that are producing The Documentary:
I think this is great!Just don't get any bright ideas to bring them here
Thanks, you're a great humanitarian and an officer as well as a gentleman. Don't change a thing, we need as many gutbucket knownothings as possible.
snif
At least they don't need Ipads or what ever tech stuff that most of the kids need to make excellent music.. !!!!
deprogrammer-
That is very generous of you. However, it is better if such things are donated to schools in areas. I will explain why.
Because of the conditions such children live in, such items would be seen as great assets, and be sold off, for the money which could be gained.To buy food,shoes, clothing and other essentials so desperately needed.With the instruments kept at schools, they will be safe, from being stolen, or forced being sold because of the extreme poverty.The parents aren't doing this because they don't love their children, nor don't want them to have good instruments.But the reality of life.
Ironically, the very instruments, which have been made from trash, may actually do more good in the end, to help these families, then good instruments would.For they would raise awareness of the plight all children are experiencing who live on the mountains of trash. If they had normal instruments, few would pay them any attention.
If you are interested, contact the person who wrote the article.There are other articles as well if you search on the Internet, as check the video, whose creators could be contacted.
My own violin was sent over to Africa a number of years ago.So it can be done, in ways that are beneficial for both children and to see that the instruments stay where they are most needed.Not ending up on the black market or sold for essentials. One just needs to use some common sense and good planning. Best wishes in your endeavors.
Fantastic! Hopefully those kids will also learn how to make their own instruments as well. Craftsmanship, and ingenuity, is truly a valuable commodity. Only wish that that type of education will be imorted here. Senor Gomez is a real 'prize'.
I had seen the video of this last week, and my feeling is the same. What great innovation and can-do attitude without regard to their economic circumstances. This should be required watching for every welfare recipient in the U.S. You can make something of yourself without begging for handouts and welfare.
It appears that some of the more important parts of the instruments are not made from trash