Orquestra Sopros de Pindoretama

Eleven years ago, a fireman from Forteleza who also happened to play the alto saxophone was invited to the town of Pindoretama, about 30 km outside of town. While there, he witnessed many, many young people just hanging out in the streets, drugs, alcohol, and prostitution amongst the youth in the town of 18,000. His name is Arley Franca. At the time he was 22 and wanted to make a difference in the lives of these poverty stricken young people. You see, in Brazil, kids only go to school four hours per day. There is no internet, very few televisions, no movie theatres, malls, etc. Basically nothing for the kids to do other than kill time and get into trouble.

Therefore, Arley decided to start a youth wind orchestra to get the kids off of the streets. To participate in the program, they HAD to go to school and behave. He found as many instruments as he could and built an inventory. He asked the city government for an old building to use as the home of his project. He talked the the fire chief in Forteleza and explained his project and asked if his work hours could be spent in Pindoretama working on this project. Luckily, the fire chief understood the good that this project could do and granted him his request.

For eleven years now, Arley has made the 1 hour drive to Pindoretama five days per week to administrate, teach and conduct these students. He has found money to purchase better instruments, although still not very good. Plastic clarinets, low quality chinese instruments, and old percussion equipment. The project has now grown to over 200 students and they started a string project just this past August with 30 string players enrolled. He found the money to buy three string basses, four cello, and 6 viola and violins.

The students are well behaved, disciplined, respectful, and beautiful people. They are very poor and don't have much in their lives, except for the musical opportunities that Arley has provided for them. Some of them went on a tour paid for by the town government to Germany and some to Norway. What a tremendous opportunity for these kids. Some of his best players have moved on to great things. His first flute player from last year is now in France studying flute. He has another young man who has become quite an accomplished composer.

He found money to purchase 8 brand new computers and created a computer lab in the facility. He has a teacher who comes in during the week to teach students how to do finale. Most of the brazilian music he has found is in manuscript and unpublished. His student enter the scores, create the parts, and once checked, they are uploaded onto a government website where other bands in Brazil can have access to the music the students have created.

The students take an hour lesson every other week with a private teacher, they have sectionals often, and the band rehearses two hours per week, five days a week, almost year round. the students are welcome to come practice or hang out at the facility any time they want, but they have to wear the official shirt so that the staff know they are in the program.

I am telling you, Arley Franca is the modern Brazilian Music Man. He researches band music on-line, he buys books about bands and has them shipped to Brazil, he organizes master classes around the country to teach other inexperienced conductors how to organize a program, and he teaches courses in music pedagogy for the young student in five different universities throughout the state of Ceara. An amazing man for sure.

I met Arley last summer when I was in Paraguay. He happened to be there for a month working on his graduate degree at a private music university in Asuncion. In the apartment where he was staying, he heard a french horn player practicing down the hall. Arley knocked on the door and introduced himself to Miguel, who happened to be from Argentina but was playing horn in the OSN that I was conducting. Miguel told Arley about the concerts, so Arley attended. He was very impressed with the work I did and came up and talked to me after each concert. He asked if I would be interested in coming to Brazil to work with his wind orchestra. I of course said yes and the rest is history.

Isn't it amazing how fate sometimes can bring people together who would have never otherwise ever met in life. I think this is an amazing story.

I truly believe that this is the beginning of a very long friendship and collaboration to help to improve wind bands throughout Brazil. I am the first American conductor to ever stand in front of the Orquestra Sopros de Pindoretama and I can tell you that I am honored and humbled by this opportunity.

Tchau