The Colombia Project

On the Week of April 9th, my quintet, the [REDACTED] Brass Quintet and I went to the country of Colombia to visit around the northern region of Colombia to spread joy in music and give several clinics for students in the area. The main location we stayed was in an apartment in Cartagena. The scenery was beautiful and a sight that only seeing with your bare eyes can you understand the beauty. We stayed for a week and had incredibly packed days full of performances and clinics. During my stay I learned an incredible amount about Colombian culture.

In Colombia the first thing I noticed was the complete financial difference between the States and Colombia. The United States is something I have taken for granted due to having regular access to AC and other amenities that make life much easier. It is a much different atmosphere than that of the States. The architecture was much older and almost rundown, but it was beautiful, nonetheless. When visiting schools and doing clinics, something that immediately struck me is how different their experience of music is. They have much cheaper equipment and a whole lot less of it. Their facilities were nowhere near as advanced as ours are and not as plenty. The thing that impressed me the most was how even with all the odds against them, they dedicate their lives to their craft. Many of us in the States have other hobbies or interests in life that we also dedicate time to, but in Colombia music is their entire lives. An event that particularly struck me with this realization was when we took a trip down to the region, Sincelejo. We had been staying in the city Cartagena, which is a much nicer area in Colombia compared to Sincelejo. This area was very tight, and the living conditions were much worse with no access to any sort of AC, and it was much hotter. After giving a clinic we realized that most of these kids only lived a block away and that this is where they would come to school. They don’t have the same education as we do and all they had was their music. It was a fantastic experience and it truly showed me how important music is to them in their culture.