Solidarity in Times of Crisis (SiToC) is a cooperation project co-funded by the Erasums+ Programme of the European Union. It counts 6 partners of 6 different countries: United Kingdom, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Romania, Germany and India. The project involves a large variety of non-formal teaching and learning activities with different audiences, mostly disadvantaged social group, refugees and disabled people.
Following the propositions listed by the EU, the aims of this project are to bring positive and long-lasting effects on the participating subjects involved such as organisations, single persons or policy systems and to develop, transfer and implement innovative techniques and practices in order to export cultural contents at local, national and international levels. In addition, this challenging venture focuses also on fostering social commitment and entrepreneurial spirit of youngsters, to develop and reinforce network, especially in an international landscape, to increase cooperation capacities within Europe and Asia, to share and confront ideas, practices, and methods.
With those, social integration, European cultures and values, such as solidarity, can be shared and spread all over the world.
In recent times, where everyone is brought to think just about themselves, projects like this are important to teach to the new generations to be better than the actual ones and to create a better future without inequalities.
The next event will be a classical concert on a real fire engine, with members of the London Fire Brigade performing a break-dance battle with local children. This show has been organised in support of the survivors and witnesses of the Grenfell Tower fire happened in June 2017.
To this activity two EMCY musicians, Kiron Atom Tellian, winner of the Peter Toperczer International Piano Competition Košice and Prima la musica and Martin Zayranov, prize winner of International Competition ‘Young Virtuosos’ have been invited.
A great opportunity to honour the victims and bring solidarity into action.
© Margherita Mabel Costantini
Another edition of the Discover Music Tour was successfully accomplished by EMCY in cooperation with UGDA Music School and the Flying Gorillas organisation.
This year many concerts and workshops took place in Luxembourg and Germany from the 4th until the 13th of March. The musical programm was based on classical music soundtracks. The musical pieces were executed with maestry by three young talented prize winners: Kiron Atom Tellian, EMCY winner of the Peter Toperczer International Piano Competition Košice, Georgios Banos, EMCY winner of the Österreichische Jugendmusikwettbewerbe Prima la Musica and Hy-Huu Dang, EMCY winner of the Concours Luxembourgeois pour Jeunes Solistes & European Competition for Young Soloists .
Detailed schedule of the tour:
Luxembourg
Wednesday – 6th March 2019
14:00 Workshop “Le Temps des Femmes” at a Women Refugee Center
Thursday – 7th March 2019
15:00 Workshop at theFondation Kraizbierg
Friday – 8th March 2019
12:30 Concert at Eglise Protestante du Luxembourg
20:00 Concert at ArcA – Salle de Concerts
Germany
Sunday – 10th March 2019
12:00 Concert at Musik Schule, Iserlohn
Monday – 11th March 2019
11:00 Workshop in a local school in Iserlohn
Tuesday – 12th March 2019
20:00 Concert in Mülheim, Cologne
Wednesday – 13th March 2019
11:00 Workshop with teenagers in Mülheim, Cologne
Sponsors:
© The Flying Gorillas
The Flying Gorillas organisation and its Italian partner “Le Nuvole” created a team of musicians and dancers coming from all over Europe and brought them to Kerala, India.
An extended period of workshop activities took place in the rural region around the city of Vithura. They had the chance to taste Bharathanatyam techniques in Hip-hop Dance Battles and teach an extended Samoan body percussion rituals to the local children.
Performances with children and young people took place at Vithura, East Fort Gandhi Park, Bhavan Arts Centre Trivandrum as well as concerts for tourists on Kovalam Beach. A great plus was also having the possibility to collaborate with the local young musicians attending the Trivandrum Academy of Western Music.
Also an EMCY Laureate took part to this project: Bernardo Moreno Quintas Aguiar, prize winner of the Concurso Juventudes Musicales Spain in 2015.
The European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY) is a network of national and international music competitions for young people across Europe, covering nearly thirty countries from Portugal to Russia and from Norway to Bulgaria. Since its foundation in 1970, EMCY stands for musical excellence, promoting the youth and European cooperation.
The Flying Gorillas (United Kingdom), the applicant organisation of the proposal, is a London based cultural organization that provides training and development for professional and emerging artists through cross-art form laboratories, performances and workshops with children aged 3 – 11 and young people.
The Ecole de musique de l’Union Grand-Duc Adolphe (Luxembourg) organises numerous extracurricular activities on local, regional, national, European and international level such as training and development workshops for children and young adults. It organises also bilateral and multilateral exchanges in collaboration with other cultural and youth organisations and is focusing on expanding the presence of the contemporary repertoire in its competitions as well as the cooperation of emerging musicians with young composers.
The Lithuanian non-profit organisation Natų knygynas (Lithuania) has a long tradition in national and international educational events for children and young adults. Among the current and upcoming events for youth is the anti-piracy project. It raises awareness for the protection of music copyrights through seminars in the major Lithuanian music schools.
The Shruti Nataka Kalari (Kerala, South India), founded by R. Sudhakharan in 1997, it is a rural children’s theatre project in Vithura, based on the teachings of Sankara Pillai, founder of the movement which defined modern Malayalam Theatre. Pillai believed that the basic needs of any community included water, cultivable land and a theatre. The project developed into RanghaPrabath Children’s Theatre still stands. Pillai’s work explored Total Theatre through the use of traditional children’s games and other forms of play. His admirers include Peter Brook, who visited Kerala to train with him in the 70s and Phillippe Gaulier, who grounded his teachings in “Le Jeu” (The Game). Pillai’s influence can be found in contemporary European work, including Theatre de Complicité and Footsbarn.
Since 1985 Le Nuvole (Italy), a permanent youth theatre of innovation and centre of high culture for the young public in Campania Region, produces theatre plays, organizes manifestations and events for the young generation. The theatrical activities are merging with activities of spread and distribution of science in the Science Centre “Città della Scienza” at Naples and with activities of theatre-art in the main art and archaeological museums at Naples and in Campania. Activities in this project are extending to Sicily.
The Fundatia Philadelphia Transylvania (Romania) is an organisation and provision of children’s camps. Created thanks to the assistance of charitable foundations of Germany, Holland, England, it enables outreach programmes in the area with members of all local communities including travellers and Roma to take place. These programme will extend the programme to vulnerable members of the Romanian, Hungarian and Roma communities, using the arts to create solidarity.
