Steward School to host Recycled Orchestra of Cateura

The Steward School next month will host members of the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura, a musical group of young people and children living in a community on the Cateura landfill in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. Environmental engineer and music enthusiast Favio Chávez established the orchestra in 2006 as a simple means to keep kids from playing in the landfill.

The community is invited to several free events involving the group, hosted by The Steward School, beginning Nov. 5.

That day, at 7 p.m., the school will host a free screening of the critically acclaimed film that tells the story of Chávez and the orchestra – “Landfill Harmonic” – at the Lora M. Robins Theatre in the Paul R. Cramer Center for the Arts.  It describes how he gave children the opportunity to create music from landfill trash such as tin cans, forks and bottle caps. To view the trailer, visit landfillharmonicmovie.com.

On Nov. 14 from 8:15 a.m. to 9 a.m., Chávez will lead a discussion of the organization and the benefit it is bringing to the Cateura community. Juliana Penaranda-Loftus, director of the film, “Landfill Harmonic,” will join him. The discussion will include a performance by the visiting orchestra students and will be held at Lora M. Robins Theatre in the Paul R. Cramer Center for the Arts.

The same day, from 3:15 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Bryan Innovation Lab, the orchestra's founder and director will speak, and the orchestra will perform. A "Musical Maker Fair" will take place after the performance. Participants of all ages are invited to join in creating musical instruments with the visiting orchestra students using trash from a local landfill. There also will be demonstrations of the instruments being performed.

The program is part of the school's 2018-2019 Bryan Innovation Lab Visiting Innovators Program. Registration is recommended for all events; to register, visit http://stewardschool.org/vip18.  For details, call 740-3394 or visit http://stewardschool.org/vip.