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A Refuge in Music: A Conversation with Ron Davis Alvarez, a 2024 Top Five CNN Hero
00:32:26
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- [00:00]
Ron Davis Alvarez
I think the music unifies once 100% and the needs existing right now with the crisis refugees and the people want solution and everybody just think about food and house and this is definitely really prioritized. But also we also need to take care of our mental health and how we can use tools who can help us in that sense.
- [00:24]
Jay Frost
Welcome to the Philanthropy Masterminds podcast brought to you by Donor Search, the show that takes you inside the lives of thought leaders, innovators and change in fundraising, philanthropy and civil society. I'm your host, Jay Frost. Today we speak with one of the top five CNN heroes of 2024, Ron Davis Alvarez, founder of the Dream Orchestra in Gothenburg, Sweden. Since 2016, Ron has brought together refugees, immigrants and locals speaking over 20 languages to create music and build community. His work shows how music can help people rebuild their lives and connect across cultures.
- [01:02]
Interviewer
Just tell me a little bit about how this all began. I understand you're originally from Caracas, is that right?
- [01:08]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Yes. And, and, and I was born in Caracas in 1986. So I'm 30, 38 years old. So I, I was born in Caracas and I started to learn music when I was 10 actually in, in a program was called El Sistema. It's a program with a social musical program and that's how I actually started. And I'm from very working families and coming from a favela. It's not favela the name, more like a barrio. It's called like. It's quite a dangerous area where. That's where I born in that area. And that's how everything started in my life.
- [01:55]
Interviewer
Well, tell me about your entry into music. So you began studying at 10. What, what did you study? What, what drew you to music?
- [02:01]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Well, actually I, I'm. I mean we were living in Caracas. My family was living in Caracas and. And we lost an uncle. He. He just went out to never back. So my grandmother was. Was afraid of the keep us really safe. So we move a lot because we didn't have much money. So we moved to different places around Caracas. And then we finally end in a. Outside Caracas in a place called Guarenas and Guadiers. There are two small now. Now there are cities, but there was kind of like outside cities. And my grandmother put in her house like, like a kiosk, but you know, informal kiosk where she sells ice creams. And through selling ice cream, the handmade, it's what we call in Venezuela chupis. I was helping her after school and in front of my grandmother's house, El Sistema school was they put on a system at school. So all the kids when they had rehearsed they was coming to my grandmother's house and asking for vanilla chocolate chupis. So that's what I was selling after school with her. I was seven years old. That and I was always curious because they were always a kid talking about Beethoven and Mozart and. And I always thought I don't know who. Who they were, but it sounds like cool people. I didn't know they were dead people. But. And. And I. And I wanted to go so to a bus. They always take them to some concerts and they come, but I didn't know they were to a concert. I just saw that they get some food and they were so happy. And I go to the same bus. So that's how actually it started. So I. I wanted to go to a system school. So I started when I was 10 and then when I was 14 I. I needed help because I wanted to start to. To get some scholarships. And then I start to teach. So I started to teach when I was 14 years old. And later two years later I become. I start to conduct in one of the orchestras in the. In the. In the school that was in front of my grandmother house.
- [04:29]
Interviewer
Was this playing the violin or.
- [04:32]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Yes, I started to play the violin. That was my first instrument. And I was just in love with the sound because from my grandmother house you can hear when there was some people was practicing in front from the balcony. You can hear it from the school. So I always wanted to play the valley and I play valley.
- [04:51]
Interviewer
Classical music is something that some people love and other people find very foreign or alien. If you didn't know who the composers were, how did you find the music and how significant was it for you to start learning that language of music?
- [05:09]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Well, in Venezuela, in the place where I started to learn. I mean it was not only classical music. You learn folk music and you learn classic. So you was relative to you was playing maybe one Beethoven symphony and then you change and then you will play folk music. And then so we saw a lot of different music. So for me it was more about how I feel when I enter to the orchestra and I actually there that. That moment it was everything start to begin that I really wanted to. To. To support and give all the learning and so thankful to. To. To multiply with another. So I think everything started there. So I. I was really in love with the possibility to be in an equal area where everywhere feel like a possibility to. To learn an instrument. So that's everything. It Starts so I start playing at 10 years old and then 14 start to teach and then at 16 it start to connect and then I want to study at the university and then start to travel around the world.
- [06:19]
Interviewer
Oh, so you, you took a degree in music in Venezuela and then you begin your travels?
- [06:24]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Well, I study in El Sistema, I study in the university, who later changed the names because political reasons in Venezuela. But then my, my biggest knowledge came from them. Al Systema school. Yeah. And then through an exchange at the university and programming El Sistema, I came to Sweden and that's how I came in 2015.
- [06:54]
Interviewer
And what was the idea of the exchange was that just to meet with other musicians and orchestras or what was it?
- [07:01]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Well, it's. Before I came to Sweden, I lived in Greenland for three years. I. I live in north of Greenland, actually. I. I came to Greenland, to the north of Greenland because I applied for a volunteering work or in an orphanage to teach music. So. And I came there and the person, the director, who is a director of Umana children home with like the orphanage, she. She invited me and I went there and I came to. That was when I was 24 tour. Actually I came there and see, I didn't speak English at all. So I came there and I came with a pianist to play, but also as a volunteer. So through that I came three months and I stayed there and then I. I went back to Venezuela and I talked with Sabreo, who was the creator of El Sistema. I say, listen, I was teaching in Umanak, which is north of Greenland, and I really love project I'm doing there. And then he said, you should go back because if the kids are waiting for you, you should go over there. And then I back and I stayed there. I stayed there three years. So now I'm coming every year, one year, once a year actually I was there last month. So I. I live in the north of Greenland, teaching in an orphanage. A kid who have traumatizing abuse and problems. And I started. And I started an orchestra. Actually it's the first orchestra of the Polar Cycle is the. Is a Inuit orchestra. So we, we. When I came there, I didn't know this. No, I've never been traveling duck sledding. So. So. So I. So I live first in Greenland and through Greenland I travel a lot and I met the people from Sweden and. And I came to visit Sweden a couple of times and then when I moved back from green to Venezuela, the Swedish people was already in discussion with Venezuela and I already discussed and they want me to bring me here to Sweden. So that's how we find the way, the best ways to do it through the university. And that's how we did.
- [09:22]
Interviewer
It must have been a huge shock to go from Venezuela to the north of Greenland. There aren't that many people there.
- [09:30]
Ron Davis Alvarez
No, no money, no, no many people. I live in Monarch and I. The people really. I have to kind of learn the dialects. I mean, I don't speak fluency, but I could understand now. And so I start with a very small orchestra. But now that time we. We become like almost 25 or 30 kids playing in the orchestra. So yes, in that. That small village or town, I don't know how to call it. It's like a little island in the big island. There were maybe 1,000 people in general with all the small village around. And so I have the opportunity actually when the people ask me what happened in Greenland, I say in Greenland I discovered that I want to teach all my life. That was something that I. I realized when I met Sam. Because when I went to Greenland I have to travel by docksletting with hunters or go by boats on the ice with local people. And I realized how much I enjoy to play for fishing people and the small village and how the power of music was given to all these kids in Greenland. And then I say I want to do this the rest of my life. And so when I came back to Venezuela I was already in conversation with Sweden to come to Sweden. And actually for me Sweden it was like a good point to. To be in Europe because then I was close to Greenland and I could travel to Venezuela because one of my. My afraid to be in Greenland living. It was like the weather to go out when. If it's an emergency or family. So how I can go out to. To see my family. So I was like actually I got stuck last time I went there like a week in the airport. So. So that's one of the things that always thinking like okay, I would like to live in a place where it's more convenient in a way to. To. To move. So then yes, then I came to Sweden in 2015 the first time to do an exchange with the university. That's actually when the idea of three more ketcher came.
- [11:49]
Interviewer
And this was. Was your idea alone. You were visiting with. With people there and you just saw a need for a new orchestra.
- [11:57]
Ron Davis Alvarez
No, actually it was my idea. But it doesn't start like. Like this. It started because I. And during that visit I went to the Central Station, Stockholm. And so we Were arriving because we have to visit some program. And I saw in 2015 was a big massive arriving from the Middle east, especially from Afghanistan. There was a lot of Afghans and there was so a big wave of migration asylum seekers. And I didn't know what's happening. And I was really. I was a little bit afraid because there was so many people moving. And then I asked one of the police were there and some person who was with a banana and water giving and signs. And I asked excuse me, what's. What's happening? And they say we are receiving so many young people who are arriving from Afghanistan and Syria and we just try to locate them. And. And I knew it already in that moment. I was taking the train to Gothenburg at that moment. And I say in that train I was sitting and I says, well, if I'm coming back to Sweden, because I was already planning to. To move to Sweden, I'm gonna do something for these people. I. I do feel like a cold. You want to, you know when someone inside you just. You should do something for these people. And I mean I. The only thing that I know that I can share is music. So. So that's how I came. But it was not so easy when I came to do it. So it took me quite a while to do starting up. So I came in January 2016 and I had in mind I want to create an orchestra for this young refuge and Ansell sequence arriving. Who I saw in the train station, that was in my. In my mind it was the picture of these girls and boys that saw it. So it was there, it was mainly boys and because that was one of the wave arrived from the boys and then after they was asking to bring the whole family. But so I. I was really like I wanted and I start to. From that moment I start to create a plan. And it. It took me quite some time because I knock a lot of organization doors and things to do it and was not so easy. It's been no easier. But we also find good people and volunteers, people who made possible to create dream orchestra.
- [14:41]
Interviewer
What were some of the biggest challenges? Was it identifying and finding the students or was it getting the instruments? Was it finding a place to rehearse?
- [14:50]
Ron Davis Alvarez
There must have been so many. I mean you need. When you want to create a project like that, you need a place, you need instruments, you need human resource people who are volunteering helping you because they can help you as a volunteer. But in some moment you need to pay salaries or need to help and you know, create the organization and legally and with the whole process and also how to apply for money and all of this because it's completely different. You know, create a people who will work with you to really make this work. So it's like to build something from Crash. The most difficult is the you. You make so many mistakes in. In a way that you. You have. You. You say okay, we can do it this way. And then say no, we don't find any support in this way. And then you go in this way. So I think you, you, you. It's very difficult because you never know what to. What door to knock. So it's like. And I probably don't call it. It can be a mistake, but it's just crying out. You're trying and trying and trying to figure out how make it send you learn. But that process and you also you create your orchestra. And I remember we already called Dream Orchestra. And then later on we say oh, but we need to register the name. Then we have to legal number and we have to all these things coming after. And then you have to start to. To. To. To. To kind of develop all that and create your. Your. The organization that's very difficult to find the students. I must say this in the beginnings can be difficult because you know, you don't speak the same language. You also come and most of the time I was coming to the place when saying I want to teach music and it was like I want a house to live, you know, to play an instrument. I need food to. To. To. To stay. I need a permission. Are you going to give me a permission to stay? But we realized afterwards during these years and also with a sociology who did an impact of or like a writing spot of what we do it. We recognize this journey through DreamWorks have been helping so much them and us. Because all this process is really hard. It's really difficult to deal immigration process and schools and you know, and they got deportations and. And all these moments we actually could have made it because we were together and we have a space where there were so many youth and people who didn't have family. Then we have helping each other and you know, you. You can stay this night in my home and the other one, you know, it's become like a family and it's. It's. And then it's grow by the mouth of the people. So one Afghan tell another Afghan and tell another Syria. And then Syria, you know. And in that way under cases start to grow. And then later on I, I sit and say but I don't want to have only orchestra for refugees because that's not an integration project. I want to open to people also who are from here, who are born here. But also the possibility today can mix and also there's so much to learn from each other. So we open up for everyone and. But we also recognize we didn't have any money to really run the group. So we have to apply for money. And you know, I. And all of this we have been doing with a really really small team. That's really really small team.
- [18:44]
Interviewer
How many people do you work with?
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Ron Davis Alvarez
I mean we. We have our bar, a board of director who everyone is volunteer and with six people there and they're all volunteers. The. The board of directors. And then we have a project manager and a coordinator in communication and we have now we have eight teachers. But in the beginning we were only me and, and. And me. And there are four or five more people are working to make it happen. So. And there were a lot of volunteer work like screaming a lot of volunteer work to do to make it work.
- [19:24]
Interviewer
And you had to go out and also raise some resources to do this from the government or was it from the community? What kind of support?
- [19:35]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Private philanthropic organization. I mean and then in the beginning I got a support from philanthropic organization outside of Sweden. Even not inside of. Because in Sweden it was really difficult because everyone was just focus in to get houses. And every time I was knocking the door for some people oh, I wanted to do this for our kids on orchestra where they are arriving. They was always telling me but this is not priority for us. And this, this and. And so I start to knock doors of organization that I. That I knew it before because before that I've been supporting a lot of programs like in Lebanon or in Jordan or when in Kenya. As you know, I've been working in 37 countries. So yeah, it's great. So I've been supporting like projects.
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Interviewer
What are these other projects? Is this part of the same dream?
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Ron Davis Alvarez
I mean in the beginning I was doing by myself, but now it's part of like we support through Dream Orchestra. So through Dream Orchestra we have opportunity to now supporting a project in Ukrainian and then other projects in Palestine and new projects in. So with three more kids. It's not only Gothenburg 400 kids. We all supporting different organizations around the world who we do normally for free, but we have been the possibility to go there and train the teachers and work with them.
- [21:20]
Interviewer
What is the thing that unites all of those? Because the experience of being a learning musician or an orchestra performer in Palestine and One in Sweden and one in Ukraine. Their experiences are also different. What, what unifies it?
- [21:38]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Well, one of the things unifies us is the mission idea to be a better human being. You know, like global citizenship and. And things more in like to get this world better and that that's unified. So we all want really to create a harmonizing you know where for really peace into that's and the other six music. I mean the music is actually the. The perfect tool to. Because culturally the music's different but it's still music. So so we, we this I think the music unifies once 100 and the other thing is the needs they existing right now with the crisis of refugees and so so much crisis refugees and the people want solution and everybo and house and this is definitely really prioritized. But also we also need to take care of our mental health and how we can use tools who can help us in that sense. And so we are really connecting through that vision or that mission of giving a collective practice music to. To an unsafe place. And that's actually what have been connecting us.
- [22:57]
Interviewer
The experience of being a person from one country in another. Especially when it's not really of your choice as a refugee. You go where there's safety. That's also something that must unify each of these experiences. Because if there are for example, you know, Syrians in Sweden and Ukrainians of course have gone throughout Europe etc. This finding, finding this music. Music opportunity must be really meaningful to them.
- [23:32]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Yes. One of the things is like when you left your home. I do I. I said because I'm Venezuelan. So I left my country, my home country. When you left your home, of course in another circumstance. But, but, but when you left your home, it's part of you who stayed in that place. No matter if you become older and you pass almost your old life in a new place, this is still some part of you stay in the place where you come from. And I say I know these true people that being, you know having experience. So they are part there we you even you say you left. It's. It will be connecting because it's inside of you. So I, I must say that when you come to this country you feel so vulnerable and you definitely want to learn and you want to become to have a better life and you want to learn from the people and maybe you. And you learn definitely a new language, a new new culture, but you also bring it back with you. And this back with you is. It is no material. It's a back of information. It's a back of culture. It's a badge of language. And there I must say the music and food can really remind you and connecting to your other part and who you are. So I think in that is one of the beauty part of the music that when you come and if you can express yourself as you want it, then music can really express that moment where you want to express your. Your situation. Or I remember when I started or Keshe. I have a student's name, Ashish. In the beginning he was not able to speak with me at all. He was not speaking English, he was not speaking Swedish. He was not. And it was like six months after. Then he told me after one rehearsal say Ron, I want to say that I love Dream Orchestra. And I really wanted to say this season, the second rehearse but I didn't know how to say how to say that I love and. But that's why I was coming every day to play because I wanted to say I love. So. So in this is something and some small just things that they just telling you but. But you know they have a big meaningful in their life and also in your. So I think this is something that is connecting you to your homeland or to your home country and. And you become a new new citizen person. You know, like more global citizen thinking. Even if you are in a. In a local pace, your. Your. Your brain's got more connecting to. To who you are and to who you want to be. So I think this is something that I feel in. In the Dreamers Castra happen all the time.
- [26:45]
Interviewer
What's been the biggest surprise for you?
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Ron Davis Alvarez
Positive or negative?
- [26:53]
Interviewer
Oh either.
- [26:55]
Ron Davis Alvarez
Yeah. The. The. The negative ones is being one we get deportations when we get deportation of students. You know, in the beginning of the orchestra we got a couple deportations. They send it back to Afghanistan and because in that moment the Taliban was not taken over and they were sending them back and. And then after the Taliban took it's like the. So for me that was the most critical moments was a surprise for me because I never understood how you can send people who were already learning the language, studying, making the best effort to be integrated. And then they were sending back for me that was and still hurt. You know, it's very hard in feel feelings and in that sadness, you know. And the. The big surprises had been how music become an important part of their life. But they also took it with a big tool for their own daily life. Because like I see like students. It was two months ago I met one student in another city and she. It was part of Dream Orchestra and say Ron, I'm graduating now for the university. You remember when I came to Sweden and I started in the end of the generation and I couldn't believe I could do anything. But I remember that you were just like you can play, you can do this. And we have concert in two weeks and we're going to travel and all this and all this empowerment and all this moment of coming time and be empathized with others and listening go there. All these tools just make me the professional that I am now. And I was so proud because to hear that things surprises because you think oh there are some people say what you teach music what? I don't think it's just music, it's just more than that.
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Interviewer
So what remains to be done? What do you imagine for Dream Orchestra but also for. For you as you look ahead?
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Ron Davis Alvarez
I dream my biggest dream that I really. I know they're going to make it for one weight or not. I will do it to create a learning center. I want to create like a center because we don't have like a center. We rehearse in a church and you know it's, it's. It's wonderful to be there but it's really difficult to keep kind of a schedule. And we always have our schedule but we cannot really makes support to other peoples that are from outside of Sweden, for example. So my biggest dream is that we can have our dream orchestra center. And actually last year we wrote a book which is called Dream Orchestral Learning Model and it's in our website and it's free. It's completely free. It's for any program. Actually there are four books in our website. Who is free for teachers and we are no or I am not in my team. So we are not really expecting to make Dream Orchestra everywhere. But we really want to support people who have the idea of starting an organization like Dream Orchestra but they don't know how especially in the artistic way. I mean we don't gonna coach you how to do the final support because then you need to develop depending of your own countries. But you know, the artistic and the educational part. So that's why we wrote the books and we wanted to you know, be able to offer for free. That's. That's our. Our. Our. Our what? That's my main dream. And I think the world is showing us this situation is going so bad everywhere. Not only by conflict, by political but also by climate change. I mean you see there are people who are moving out of their place because water came in like happened in Spain or it's happening other place in Asia. So it's going to become more and more refugees and asylum seekers for one reason or another. So we have to really work hard to really create people with big hearts. We really need to. And I think music can really make sensibility and that's why we thought we can contribute.
- [31:36]
Jay Frost
Well, that's it for today's episode of the Philanthropy Masterminds podcast. To learn more about Ron's work, visit DreamOrchestra SE. To learn more about CNN Heroes and vote for your favorites, go to CNN.comWorld Heroes. Thanks to our sponsor, Donor Search, the world leader in AI and prospect research for nonprofit fundraising, and our producer, Jack Frost. If you like what you heard today, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, the donor search YouTube channel, or wherever you like to listen. And consider giving us a like and a positive review so others can find us as well. Check out our live webinars and webcasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays and come back next week for another conversation with a leader in the world of social good. Until then, this is Jay Frost. Thanks for joining me. See you soon.