In Monday’s (8/5) East Valley Tribune (Arizona), Stephanie Perrault covers an upcoming U.S. visit by the Recycled Orchestra, whose instruments are made of garbage from a landfill in Cateura, Paraguay. “Started in 2006 by Favio Chavez, an environmental engineer and part-time music teacher working on a recycling project in Cateura, the Recycled Orchestra began when the landfill workers asked Chavez to teach their children music.… Instruments are scarce and expensive in Cateura…. Chavez … [and] a local woodworker named Nicholas Gomez sent trash-pickers … to look for items that could be re-purposed as instruments. After two years … they finally had enough instruments for an ensemble. These included a violin made from a commercial glue canister, a flute constructed from a tin water pipe, an oil-barrel cello and a drum made with x-ray films. These instruments … are on display at the Musical Instrument Museum [in Phoenix], where, on Aug. 9-10, 14 members of the La Orquesta de Instrumentos Reciclados (or Recycled Orchestra), now part of a flourishing music school composed of multiple ensembles, make their U.S. debut. The museum coordinated the visit in conjunction with the Landfill Harmonic—a documentary [scheduled for 2014 release] about the orchestra produced by Phoenix resident Alejandra Nash and directed by Graham Townsley.”
Posted August 6, 2013
