Sonidos de la Tierra (Sounds of the Earth) is an innovative social entrepreneurship program, recognized for its great transformative impact on rural communities across Paraguay. Sonidos de la Tierra uses music to create social capital and reduce poverty.
Young people living in poor areas have few opportunities for constructive recreation.
Sonidos de la Tierra engages towns in supporting music education and performance, creating new ways of thinking about development and even making instruments out of recycled materials.
Musical performance, explains Maestro Luis Szaran, teaches patience, encourages the pursuit of excellence; and promotes a sense of community.
More than 14,000 disadvantaged young people from 180 cities and towns have participated.
Music is a tool for social and community transformation and fosters social entrepreneurship, cultivates good citizen practices, combats youth violence, and eradicates poverty.
Program Growth and Replication Communities compete to be admitted to the program, committing to provide resources to launch and sustain it.
Founder and Director, Sonidos de la Tierra
Luis Szarán is an internationally known composer and conductor, maestro of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Asunción, Paraguay. The eighth child of struggling farmers, he was “discovered” by a prominent Paraguayan musician and given the opportunity to study with master teachers in Europe. His experience drove him to found “Sonidos de la Tierra” (Sounds of the Land) in early 2002, adapting an approach pioneered in Venezuela, Colombia, and Costa Rica. Sonidos’ program engages entire towns in supporting music education and performance, and in so doing, creates new ways of thinking about development challenges. The program provides musical leadership from the maestro and a corps of itinerant professors, and financial assistance to acquire the instruments needed to start. Szarán is widely quoted as saying that “young people who play Mozart by day do not break windows at night.” The project also supports studios where artisans construct and repair instruments, earning substantial income and keeping the project supplied, and is engaging its students and teachers in reviving and documenting the traditional music of Paraguay.
Sonidos de la Tierra has worked in more than 200 cities, towns, rural communities, and slums, reaching more than 18,000 children and young people of Paraguay, who participate in its academic, artistic, and community activities. When Sonidos de la Tierra started in 2002, in Paraguay, there were only one symphony orchestra and three youth orchestras. By 2016, there were five symphony orchestras and 100 youth orchestras. Thirty percent of the musicians from the symphony orchestra of the city of Asuncion have participated in the Sonidos de la Tierra program.
