Venezuelan migrants find solace playing music in Argentina

Record ID: 1367824

  • Title: Venezuelan migrants find solace playing music in Argentina
  • Date: 12th December 2018
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (DECEMBER 10, 2018) (REUTERS) SUBWAY TRAINS RUMBLING DOWN THE TRACKS THROUGH A TUNNEL, THE SOUND OF A SAXOPHONE CAN BE HEARD VENEZUELAN NATIONAL CESAR PEREZ PLAYING HIS SAXOPHONE AS THE METRO TRAINS RUMBLE PAST PEREZ PLAYING THE SAXOPHONE GENERAL VIEW OF PEREZ PLAYING THE SAXOPHONE, PASSENGERS AND SUBWAY EMPLOYEES WALKING ABOUT PASSENGERS STANDING O
  • Embargoed: 26th December 2018 21:26
  • Keywords: Venezuela Argentina migrants Nicolas Maduro economic crisis musicians orchestra
  • Location: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • City: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics,Editors' Choice
  • Reuters ID: LVA0019AN5DTV
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: As metro trains rumble down the tracks in Buenos Aires, the sounds of a lone saxophone echoes off the tiled walls of a subway station.
    Venezuelan César Pérez, 33, plays the saxophone. He arrived in Buenos Aires six months ago and joined Latin Vox Machine, a group that includes a majority of Venezuelan musicians aged between 18 and 35.
    They were all trained in El Sistema (The System), founded by Venezuelan maestro Jose Antonio Abreu who died earlier this year. It was a programme that pulled thousands of Venezuelan children up from crime and poverty through music.
    "The orchestra Latin Vox Machine is a means to an end and that end is to demonstrate what an organized community is capable of," Perez said.
    "That is what Venezuelans in this country want, to integrate any other person that has left their country and integrate them into the orchestra where they have a space where they can feel at home." he added.
    Latin Vox Machine was founded in 2017 by Venezuelan Omar Zambrano after he stumbled upon a group of Venezuelan academic musicians playing in Buenos Aires' subway. What started off with 35 musicians quickly swelled to over 100, thanks to social media networks, and includes a variety of musicians who have emigrated to Argentina.
    "More than an orchestra, it is a containment group. There are people who are maybe somewhat broken and the idea is to gather up the pieces in one place and I think that an orchestra is the best way to do it," Zambrano, an audiovisual producer who arrived in Buenos Aires three years ago, said.
    "These guys are tirelessly working and feeling a bit in that homeland they lost because they are far away from their cities, and being here they feel like family again, that family that they suddenly lost," he added.
    The orchestra offers a small piece of home for more than 100 young Venezuelan musicians who fled their homeland due to a deepening economic and social crisis.
    Elizabeth Gordonez, a 26-year-old young violinist married to a cellist who taught music in Venezuela, arrived in Buenos Aires in August. A month later, thanks to a friend, she was already playing in Latin Vox Machine.
    "We brought our instruments with the intention to sell them if we found ourselves in an economic bind, to have that safety net," Gordonez said.
    "Thanks to God in heaven and the Virgin, we found ourselves this family," she added.
    Within the framework of Human Rights Day, the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR) sponsored a concert by Latin Vox Machine entitled "Music for Our Home" that also featured performances by Syrian refugees.
    The orchestra performed across several genres that included tango and classical pieces as well as contemporary pop. Each presentation included a visual representation according to the theme.
    According to data from UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration, more than 3 million people have fled Venezuela because of the crisis, of which 2.4 million are in Latin America and the Caribbean. Currently, 130,000 Venezuelans live in Argentina.
    Argentina is the fourth country with the largest number of Venezuelan migrants. Colombia leads with close to 1 million Venezuelans living there, followed by Peru and Ecuador with almost half a million each.
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