The Recycled Orchestra

    Earlier today I received an email from my mom with an amazing link attached. It was a video of children who live in Cateura, Paraguay. It’s a small village, known as the slums and it’s build on a landfill. Many families work at this landfill and decided to use the trash to build recycled instruments. It’s amazing what these people were able to accomplish. In the video, you will learn that a violin is worth more than a house in Paraguay. So it’s pretty remarkable that there is such a large group of children with access to recycled instruments that sound as beautiful as professionally made pieces, typically costing thousands of dollars. The community formed a recycled orchestra called, The Landfill Harmonic Orchestra, where every musician plays a recycled instrument.

    I thought this would be a great video to use in a music unit where the students explore different cultures. Especially in grades five and six, the study of musical culture is very broad and it would be a lot of fun to look at how this initiative has changed and impacted the community of Cateura. As an extension, you could also have your students make their own instruments out of recycled materials. If you’re exceptionally talented, maybe you’ll be able to figure out a way to get the creations to work properly. If not, I wouldn’t worry. Just making the instruments to create that connection would be enough to create a really engaging lesson.

    Click on the picture below to be redirected to the video. I hope you’ll feel as moved and inspired as I was.