Virtual Reality "Symphony" goes on tour

(From “Maestro Dudamel takes virtual reality Symphony on tour” by James Badcock, BBC News)

“‘Music is a language without words: it comes to each of us in a unique way and yet it also unites us even though we appreciate it in different ways. For me that is a beautiful symbol for these times - we can embrace each other through music,’ says the 39-year-old music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

“Introduced to music through El Sistema, a network of youth orchestras in Venezuela with a strong community dimension, he has leveraged his own meteoric career to develop projects aimed at inspiring and uniting children and youth in dozens of countries around the world.

“The Gustavo Dudamel Foundation, which he co-chairs with his wife, Spanish actress María Valverde, has worked with marginalised children from as far apart as Sweden and Venezuela, as well as creating social ‘bridges’ through encounters between young musicians.

“Some live thousands of miles apart, others come from different worlds next door to each other, as they do in a US project combining students from the elite Princeton University with young people from nearby Trenton, New Jersey, a town with one of the lowest graduation rates in the US.

“The underlying ideas are unapologetically idealistic. Mr Dudamel and Ms Valverde argue passionately that access to art and beauty is an inalienable human right for all, and that differences can help bring people together.

“‘The most beautiful thing would be to join through our differences, and not see them as an element of division,’ says Dudamel. ‘I think that fact that each youth comes from different socioeconomic, cultural and religious context and then they play together to create one discourse - that is music.’”