Ron Davis \u00c1lvarez stood on a train platform in Stockholm, stunned by what he saw. <\/p>\n
The Venezuelan orchestra conductor was visiting Sweden as part of a university exchange program. He\u2019d expected his time passing through a train station on the way to visit a student group that day in 2015 to be uneventful. <\/p>\n
Instead, he watched throngs of people getting off trains, their faces drawn and exhausted. Volunteers raced past him to hand out bananas and water to the new arrivals. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was completely in shock, seeing all of these young boys arriving,\u201d \u00c1lvarez recalls. <\/p>\n
He asked someone what was going on. <\/p>\n
The answer: \u201cThey are from Syria and Afghanistan. Many of them are unaccompanied. They traveled here alone.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat will happen to them?\u201d \u00c1lvarez asked. <\/p>\n
No one knew. <\/p>\n
It was the kind of overwhelming, desperate scene that\u2019s unfolded in cities all over the world for centuries, and even more visibly in recent years as war, poverty and persecution drive a growing number of people to flee their homes. <\/p>\n
But one thing was different about that moment on the Stockholm train platform. <\/p>\n
\u00c1lvarez was there watching, and he had an idea. <\/p>\n
That idea would change his life, and the lives of hundreds of others he hadn\u2019t met yet. It would take \u00c1lvarez and his message to stages across Sweden and across the world. It would make him a better teacher. It would inspire him with hope and fill him with fear. And it would give lost teenagers something they thought they\u2019d never find. <\/p>\n
But like most big ideas, it started much smaller. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t long before \u00c1lvarez was back in Sweden. He\u2019d been tapped as the artistic director of El Sistema Sweden, based in the coastal city of Gothenburg. It\u2019s one of many programs worldwide inspired by Venezuela\u2019s famed El Sistema, which provides instruments and teaches music to underprivileged youth. <\/p>\n
\u00c1lvarez first joined El Sistema as a child growing up in a Caracas slum. He learned to play violin and later to become a teacher and conductor. He says the experience shaped his life and gave him opportunities he never expected. <\/p>\n
He\u2019d continue that legacy at El Sistema Sweden. <\/p>\n
But as he began his new role, the memory of what he\u2019d seen months earlier on the train platform remained seared in his mind. <\/p>\n
El Sistema Sweden\u2019s work was focused on younger children enrolled in Swedish schools. The youth he\u2019d seen pouring into the train station were already in their later teenage years. It\u2019s an age when many might assume it\u2019s too late to learn an instrument. <\/p>\n
\u00c1lvarez knew it wasn\u2019t. And he knew he had to try to help them. <\/p>\n
Officials, he says, were harder to convince. Basic needs like food and shelter, he says, were seen as more important than teaching music to the growing number of asylum seekers arriving in Sweden. <\/p>\n
So \u00c1lvarez says he did what he could, starting small. <\/p>\n
With a handful of instruments on loan, he visited schools to drum up interest. Eventually, he recruited a group of 13 youth from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea and Albania. He dubbed them the Dream Orchestra. <\/p>\n
\u201cI remember coming into the room and there were a lot of girls and boys, and I was nervous,\u201d \u00c1lvarez says in a short film about the orchestra featured on its website. \u201cAnd it was interesting, because I just came with the instruments, and I said, \u2018Ok guys, we\u2019re going to have a concert in two weeks.\u2019 And I remember that all of them were surprised. I think they thought I was crazy.\u201d <\/p>\n
Many of the Dream Orchestra\u2019s members had never played an instrument before they joined. They came from different countries. They didn\u2019t speak the same languages. <\/p>\n
But they shared one major thing in common: They were immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees searching for a new home. <\/p>\n
And \u00c1lvarez was ready to help them find one. <\/p>\n
Mostafa Kazemi lights up when he recalls the day he met \u00c1lvarez in 2016. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhich instrument do you play?\u201d the conductor asked him. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t play,\u201d Kazemi replied. <\/p>\n
\u00c1lvarez\u2019s response was confident and unflinching: \u201cYes, you can. Come and pick which one you want.\u201d <\/p>\n
Kazemi, originally from Afghanistan, was 16 years old at the time. He\u2019d been in Sweden for a matter of months. No one had talked to him like this before. <\/p>\n
So a few weeks after the Dream Orchestra began, Kazemi became one of its first members. He picked the cello, an instrument one of his friends was playing. <\/p>\n
We are not case numbers. We are not names on a list. We are people who bring different knowledge, experience and opportunity \u2014 and a lot of dreams. <\/p>\n
Ron Davis \u00c1lvarez, Dream Orchestra founder and artistic director <\/p>\n
The small ensemble rehearsed on Fridays and Saturdays. Those were \u00c1lvarez\u2019s days off, and also a time when he knew it was important to keep young people occupied and off the streets. <\/p>\n
At first, teaching the group wasn\u2019t easy, \u00c1lvarez recalls. He was used to instructing younger Spanish-speaking students who came from similar backgrounds. This would require a different approach. <\/p>\n
\u00c1lvarez spoke English, and some of the other members of the Dream Orchestra did, too. But still, misunderstandings were frequent, even comical at times. <\/p>\n
Body language was key to overcoming those obstacles. So was finding a way to connect more deeply with each person \u2013 to learn what music they liked and where they came from and who they were. <\/p>\n
Another key part of \u00c1lvarez\u2019s approach with these older students: giving them the confidence to make mistakes. <\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to build confidence \u2013 first the confidence of the sound. That\u2019s number one. Try to build big sound. Because the big sound is easy for me to start to (adjust), like a DJ. But it\u2019s too difficult if it\u2019s too little sound,\u201d he says. \u201cI prefer that you make a mistake. \u2026 It doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s the right note or not.\u201d <\/p>\n
The confidence comes first. Then the right notes follow as motor skills are sharpened \u2013 something that \u00c1lvarez says simply takes more time with older students. <\/p>\n
\u00c1lvarez\u2019s students say his passion inspired them to push themselves. <\/p>\n
\u201cRon was full of energy all the time,\u201d Kazemi says. \u201cAnd that made us want to do more and more and more. We were practicing at home. I even brought some more students. I told my friends. \u2026 And everyone told their friends, and everyone came to orchestra.\u201d <\/p>\n
Before long, the group that started with 13 students was growing. <\/p>\n
Now, eight years later, the Dream Orchestra has more than 400 members from nearly 20 countries who speak around 20 languages between them. There are multiple ensembles within the organization for students of different ages living in different locations in and around Gothenburg, and playing at different levels. Some members are children of immigrants. Swedish nationals whose families have lived in the country for generations have joined, too. And some parents of the young people in the orchestra are also now in its ranks. <\/p>\n
Other teachers have joined \u00c1lvarez on staff. And he\u2019s no longer directing El Sistema Sweden. \u00c1lvarez works for the Gothenburg Symphony as the artistic director of a summer music program. And he spends as much time as he can with the Dream Orchestra every week. <\/p>\n
Refugees and asylum seekers remain the core of the group, \u00c1lvarez says, \u201cbut it\u2019s an orchestra for everyone.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mushtaq Khorsand says he had no intention of joining the Dream Orchestra when he first heard about it from a friend at school. He knew enough about classical music to know it wasn\u2019t for him. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have seen that before, people playing in a classical music orchestra. They are usually sad. They look like they don\u2019t want to play,\u201d Khorsand recalls thinking. \u201cI\u2019m a hip-hop guy, you know. We jump.\u201d <\/p>\n
But watching just one performance of the Dream Orchestra changed his mind. He saw his friends from school sitting beside strangers and smiling as they played. And he asked \u00c1lvarez if he could join. <\/p>\n
Asking that question, he says, changed his life. <\/p>\n
So many times since he\u2019d left Afghanistan, Khorsand felt like people had demeaned and underestimated him. He could tell that \u00c1lvarez believed in him before he\u2019d even played a note. <\/p>\n
Khorsand started out playing the French horn after \u00c1lvarez suggested it. He switched to the flute when that instrument became available, preferring its softer tone. <\/p>\n
He says the community he found in the orchestra helped him through dark times in his life \u2013 including an initial negative decision in his immigration case that he feared might force him to leave Sweden. Whenever he and other members of the orchestra struggled, Khorsand says, \u00c1lvarez was always willing to listen and did what he could to help. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat was really important for me, because when I came here, I had a really rough time. \u2026 I wasn\u2019t allowed to work. I didn\u2019t have money. So if I wasn\u2019t part of Dream Orchestra and (hadn\u2019t) met Ron, I don\u2019t where I would be,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
Now he\u2019s 25 and a job coach helping other refugees find work in Sweden. <\/strong>He has a young son who loves listening to him play the flute. He\u2019s released a solo Dari-language hip-hop album. <\/p>\n And he\u2019s embraced other kinds of music, too. In videos of rehearsals and performances on the Dream Orchestra\u2019s YouTube channel, Khorsand can be seen playing, singing and dancing with other members of the group \u2013 and he\u2019s smiling. <\/p>\n Someday, he says he hopes to follow in \u00c1lvarez\u2019s footsteps and become a music teacher. <\/p>\n Even as his life has gotten busier, he makes a point of playing his flute with the group every weekend. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the only thing I do for myself,\u201d he says. \u201cI cannot imagine being without them.\u201d <\/p>\n