LatinaLista —
Campaign: Help Chilean music students attend festival in USA
For 3 years, Natalie Young has been professor of horn at the University of Talca in Talca, Chile. Her final goal before leaving the country is to help the students of the Trabun Quintet attend the Atlantic Brass Quintet Seminar in Boston, Massachusetts.
Although Chile is one of the most developed countries in South America, the disparity between the rich and poor is astounding. These students’ families earn around $500 a month.
One of Young’s goals in Chile has been to help open the students’ worlds. None of them have ever been out of South America, and most have never been out of Chile. Attending the seminar gives them the opportunity to meet American music students, take classes with American professors and performing musicians, and see what life is like outside of their own country.
Young cannot over-emphasize how deserving these kids are and believes the seminar will change their lives.
The Atlantic Brass Quintet has already provided the students with a talent-based scholarship. Young and her colleagues sent recordings which impressed organizers of the seminar, and they offered to pay 25 percent of the tuition. Young and her family have donated money towards getting the students to Boston. The University of Talca has also (hopefully) agreed to pay their plane tickets, which cost around $6000 total.
The campaign’s goal of $5000 is to be spread out to cover expenses such as $2000 for tuition, plus $3000 towards their housing in Boston. The students are “busking” in the streets every week to pay for their passports and food once they are there. They are even planning on simply eating loaves of bread with butter while they are there — They just want to attend the seminar.
They are used to living in uncomfortable conditions- no heat, no hot water, old clothes, sometimes little food. For them, the music is all that matters.
If the students are unable to reach the Boston goal, donations will be spent on improving their instruments or attending a less expensive seminar in South America.
The campaign ends in 23 days.
