Landfill Harmonic performs in Vancouver

The Orquesta de Intstrumentos Reciclados de Cateura, or Recycled Orchestra, the Cateura, Paraguay-founded youth orchestra who perform with instruments made from recycled materials, performed at the Vancouver Playhouse Sunday, May 29, as part of the Musical Bridges Spring Benefit Concert organized by Instruments Beyond Borders (IBB).

IBB is a charitable organization that was inspired by the Recycled Orchestra to supply donated instruments to disenfranchised youth musicians and music education programs around the world. Ticket sales at the concert raised $30,000. The orchestra received $20,000 of this, while the remaining proceeds went toward the Saint James Music Academy of Vancouver’s downtown eastside.  

The orchestra, known also as the Landfill Harmonic Orchestra, was founded by music teacher and environmental analyst Favio Chávez, who began scavenging Cateura’s landfill for materials to make musical instruments in 2008. He is now the orchestra’s full-time conductor. 

In an interview with the Vancouver Sun, Chávez expresses the importance of music education for children and his concern that funding for such programs could be cut.

“These kids in Cateura, they have no security,” Chávez said. They have very humble houses. No jobs. No education security. Everything is unknown. For them, music is essential. Why is it not for somebody who lives in a wealthy city like [Vancouver]? Why would they not consider music an important part of their children’s development?”