Photo: Dream Orchestra
Every Saturday, at a church in Gothenburg, Sweden, hundreds of people gather to play music as part of the Dream Orchestra. Since 2016, this free program run by violinist, conductor and teacher Ron Davis Alvarez, 38, has given hundreds of refugees, immigrants, vulnerable young people, and native Swedes the chance to learn an instrument, connect with others, and enrich their lives. Growing up in Venezuela, he joined El Sistema, which provides free music training to children from under-resourced communities, at 10. Eventually, he studied conducting at university and worked for El Sistema, including starting Greenland’s first youth orchestra. In 2016, having moved to Gothenburg, he offered a music group for refugees in his free time. Now it has more than 300 members, 3 to 56 years old, of more than 25 nationalities. As well as immigrants and refugees, the group includes many second-generation immigrants as well as native Swedes.
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