Hogar de Ancianos - San Ramón

I got inspired by Antarquito to go and visit and perform for this elderly home in San Ramón.

What a joyful activity that was!!

An added bonus to this activity was the fact that Antarquito with the help of his school friend got to talking with the Elderly and decided to write a list of values, where with one value each member of the home shared with us about why that word was important to them.

End result:

Then we got them together at the home's church.
The repertoire played:

Humoreske - Dvorak
Salut d Amour - Elgar

Meditation - Massenet

Suit No 1 - Bach

I missed playing with a piano for the accompaniment part on this event, but this time I used my BOSS loop station for the accompaniment part. The acoustic in the church was really good and it helped. Although on a funny note, when I asked at the end if they liked what they heard, a third of them said they had hearing problems but enjoyed it all the same.. they even asked for more!!
All and all, the smile on their faces was quite fulfilling.

I will post a video soon on a performance with the loop station as accompaniment to get some reaction on the use of it.

Some inspiration for our project!!

Amartya Sen (1998 Nobel Prize in Economics) defines through his criteria of “Development as freedom” a broader understanding of freedom and hence of development, not only in a limited sense of dealing with oppression but more in terms of a broader democratic access, the rights and/or the choice to participate in the definition and implementation of economic mechanisms (i.e. access to credit, protection from abject poverty, unemployment benefits) and other important basic freedoms (as he enlists them) that encircle one’s sustainable, healthy and productive life -  and that is where I find harmony in his writings, on what will distinguish a truly free individual.

There is a lot to be said about his insightful writings and research, and I recommend his book “Development as Freedom” for that, and well, is by that same token that I got to thinking about a more democratic access to culture and more specifically about performing arts and their social benefits, not only in terms of a more obvious improvement of communication skills, but also in the development of other personality traits for those who participate as creator or spectators, such as discipline, motivation, expression, enjoyment, among others..  

With this little project that we started some time ago (although recently a little dormant I might confess) I will continue to try and see about making it sustainable. There are several approaches to accomplish this, and have learned through my experience in the development of social enterprises that without ANGELS, there is a more participatory and revenue-generating approach that needs to be considered. I will keep posting on ideas for this and hopefully get some feedback on them as well.

I will in the mean time continue on my own time and resources to do as possible to bring a little more of our awareness through music project into people’s lives and revolve on the idea of the sustainability of it all.

http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/matnat/ifi/INF9200/h12/readings/papers/Sen.pdf