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STORY: CHILE / VENEZUELA REFUGEE MUSICIANS
TRT: 03:09
SOURCE: UNHCR
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT UNHCR ON SCREEN
LANGUAGES: SPANISH / NATS
DATELINE: 21 DECEMBER 2019 / 27 FEBRUARY 2021 / 02 MARCH 2021, SANTIAGO, CHILE
21 DECEMBER 2019, CULTURAL CENTRE ‘ESTACIÓN MAPOCHO’, SANTIAGO, CHILE
1. Med shot, Symphonic Orchestra performing during the Christmas concert organized by UNHCR and Music for Integration
2. Med shot, Symphonic Orchestra performing
3. Wide shot Symphonic Orchestra performing
27 FEBRUARY 2021, MUSIC FOR INTEGRATION FOUNDATION, SANTIAGO, CHILE
4. Various shots, Ana Marvez playing the piano
5. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Ana Marvez Choir Director, Music for Integration:
“When I arrived in Chile five years ago, I met so many musicians who were doing other things that had nothing to do with their formal training. We in the foundation we focus on rescuing the talents of those migrants.”
21 DECEMBER 2019, CULTURAL CENTRE ‘ESTACIÓN MAPOCHO’, SANTIAGO, CHILE
6. Wide shot, Marvez recording during the Christmas Concert
7. Med shot, Symphonic Orchestra performing during the Christmas concert
8. Med shot, Symphonic Orchestra performing during the Christmas concert
9. Wide shot, Symphonic Orchestra performing during the Christmas concert
27 FEBRUARY 2021, MUSIC FOR INTEGRATION FOUNDATION, SANTIAGO, CHILE
10. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Ana Marvez Choir Director, Music for Integration:
“With our training we’re able to stage concerts and also run educational programs. And everything we do is not only for the migrant community but for Chileans, too. For a lot of the musicians, coming to rehearsal isn’t about practice, necessarily, but about wanting to feel at home again, and about bonding with other people experiencing the same frustrations and hopes.”
11. Wide shot, Marvez walking in the city of Santiago
21 DECEMBER 2019, CULTURAL CENTRE ‘ESTACIÓN MAPOCHO’, SANTIAGO, CHILE
12. Various shots, Symphonic Orchestra performing during the Christmas concert
27 FEBRUARY 2021, MUSIC FOR INTEGRATION FOUNDATION, SANTIAGO, CHILE
13. Wide shot, Marvez turning the lights on at the foundation building
02 MARCH 2021, ANA’S HOUSE, SANTIAGO, CHILE
14. Various shots, Marvez teaching her students online
27 FEBRUARY 2021, MUSIC FOR INTEGRATION FOUNDATION, SANTIAGO, CHILE
15. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Ana Marvez Choir Director, Music for Integration:
“It’s an invitation to come together, to live together, to co-exist, to integrate while recognizing our differences – but it’s also about recognizing our similarities. Music is a universal language we all share.”
02 MARCH 2021, ANA’S HOUSE, SANTIAGO, CHILE
16. Various shots, Marvez teaching her students online
21 DECEMBER 2019, CULTURAL CENTRE ‘ESTACIÓN MAPOCHO’, SANTIAGO, CHILE
17. Wide shot, Symphonic Orchestra performing during the Christmas concert
Former choir director Ana Marvez could not stand to see the musical skills of her fellow Venezuelans go to waste in Chile, their host country. To showcase those hidden talents, she started an orchestra.
One of the most heart-wrenching aspects of being forced to leave one’s home is having to give up your profession, says Ana Marvez, a 34-year-old music teacher and choir director who left Venezuela to seek safety in Chile around five years ago.
Ana considers herself lucky. Not only did she find work within weeks of her arrival in the Chilean capital, Santiago, but she also managed to secure a position that was at least tangentially related to her former career – a minimum wage job as a secretary in an arts school.
SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Ana Marvez Choir Director, Music for Integration:
“When I arrived in Chile five years ago, I met so many musicians who were doing other things that had nothing to do with their formal training. We in the foundation we focus on rescuing the talents of those migrants.”
The same cannot be said of the majority of professional musicians who are among the more than 457,000 Venezuelan refugees and migrants now living in Chile. Most are forced to take any job they can find to get by.
Now, 350 musicians – most of them Venezuelan refugees and migrants, while others hail from Colombia, Peru and Mexico, as well as Chile – take part in the project, which includes a symphony orchestra, a choral ensemble, and several music classes for children.
SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Ana Marvez Choir Director, Music for Integration:
“With our training we’re able to stage concerts and also run educational programs. And everything we do is not only for the migrant community but for Chileans, too. For a lot of the musicians, coming to rehearsal isn’t about practice, necessarily, but about wanting to feel at home again, and about bonding with other people experiencing the same frustrations and hopes.”
While the majority of them are volunteers, giving freely of their time, the Foundation divvies up the fees it receives from the classes, as well as from the more than 100 concerts the group has performed across Chile, to help supplement the musicians’ incomes.”
SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Ana Marvez Choir Director, Music for Integration:
“It’s an invitation to come together, to live together, to co-exist, to integrate while recognizing our differences – but it’s also about recognizing our similarities. Music is a universal language we all share.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the Foundation and its members to adapt yet again. Successive lockdowns meant the group had to cancel its concert line-up, as well as in-person rehearsals, while a reduced schedule of music classes moved online.
Although it is now generating very little income for its members, the Foundation – which receives support from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency – is still doing its best to provide a safety net to those in the most critical situations.
