Kids play Mozart with violins made from garbage (Paraguay)

[Judi Lynn]

Dec 15, 3:03 PM EST

Kids play Mozart with violins made from garbage

By PEDRO SERVIN
Associated Press

CATEURA, Paraguay (AP) -- The sounds of a classical guitar come from two big jelly cans. Used X-rays serve as the skins of a thumping drum set. A battered aluminum salad bowl and strings tuned with forks from what must have been an elegant table make a violin. Bottle caps work perfectly well as keys for a saxophone.

A chamber orchestra of 20 children uses these and other instruments fashioned out of recycled materials from a landfill where their parents eke out livings as trash-pickers, regularly performing the music of Beethoven and Mozart, Henry Mancini and the Beatles. A concert they put on for The Associated Press also featured Frank Sinatra's "My Way" and some Paraguayan polkas.

Rocio Riveros, 15, said it took her a year to learn how to play her flute, which was made from tin cans. "Now I can't live without this orchestra," she said.

Word is spreading about these kids from Cateura, a vast landfill outside Paraguay's capital where some 25,000 families live alongside reeking garbage in abject poverty.

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_PARAGUAY_LANDFILL_HARMONIC?SECTION=HOME&SITE=AP&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[center]

Paraguay Landfill Harmonic Documentary Features Recycled Orchestra[/center]

[struggle4progress]

1. "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving

how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god!"

[xfundy]

2. Incredibly inspirational.

Thank you for this day-brightener.

Few people know that our garbage and recyclables are sent overseas, where people who are paid next to nothing go through it at personal risk.

This is definitely a "lemonade" story.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Same article, with better (but very large) photo:

Tito Romero demonstrates how he makes a trumpet with recycled metal in his workshop at his home in Capiata, Paraguay. Romero was repairing damaged trumpets in a shop outside Asuncion until Favio Chavez, the creator of "The Orchestra of Instruments Recycled From Cateura," asked him to turn galvanized pipe and other pieces of metal into flutes, clarinets and saxophones for his students. AP Photo/Jorge Saenz.

By: Pedro Servin, Associated Press

http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=59582