How a scrap orchestra is changing lives through music

Music equipment too expensive to form an orchestra? Then think outside the box.

That’s exactly what a Paraguayan orchestra have done, turning trash into music and performing on the international stage.

On Sunday, 10 members from the orchestra’s 60-strong group were in London, performing in front of 200 guests made up of diplomats, parliamentarians and business owners, at a 19th-century mansion near Buckingham Palace.

They played songs from the Beatles, Mozart and Coldplay to Frank Sinatra – and they did it on instruments made from scrap: discarded X-ray panels, copper rods, pallet wood to unwanted paint cans, plumbing pipes, oil drums and shoe brushes.

The Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, named after Paraguayan capital Asuncion’s biggest landfill site, have been doing it for 18 years now and have played in around 50 countries.

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The orchestra, originally started to keep teenagers away from trouble and violence, is comprised from local residents from disadvantaged backgrounds.

There’s also a music school that teaches 450 children with the hope they will progress to the orchestra later.

Director Favio Chavez said: “They learn practically from scratch with us and earn a place in the orchestra.”

Making something out of very little and keeping the children off the streets and away from trouble… now that’s music to our ears.