We are pleased to announce the launch of the European Project B-ME: Blending Melodies: Bridging Cultural Identities.
The B-Me project is implemented by Sistema Cyprus, El Sistema Greece and Associação das Orquestras Sinfónicas Juveniles Sistema Portugal and is co-funded by the European Union. B-Me brings together indigenous composers with musicians from refugee or migrant backgrounds to co-create original musical compositions that bridge different cultural identities. The compositions will be performed live by the partner youth orchestras and will be available to any other orchestra in the world. Through awareness-raising concerts in partner countries and beyond, B-Me aims to highlight the value of cultural diversity.
More specifically, through this project we seek to offer the opportunity to musicians from refugee or immigrant backgrounds to collaborate with composers from their new community and co-create musical compositions that combine the sounds of their country of origin. Each pair will be free to create their compositions without methodological restrictions or parameters. This freedom in the creative process will allow the composers to fully express their own musical identity. Partner students from these vulnerable groups will have the opportunity to learn through music workshops and later be prepared to perform these compositions in concerts. By opening these concerts to the general public, we are giving people the opportunity to see these children and these musical composers from a different perspective and to be able to understand other cultures through music. Finally, other composers and students studying music and composition will have the opportunity to attend seminars that focus on the goal of promoting social equality through music. The results will be widely disseminated and orchestras in Europe and elsewhere in the world will be invited to perform these compositions in their own countries. Recordings of all the orchestras performing the pieces will be available and open to the public in the years to come, continuing to inspire people.
