News
Música Para el Alma wins the Humanizing Health Award
Música Para el Alma, a solidarity project born in Argentina, has received the Humanizing Health Award from the TEVA laboratory, receiving 1 million Argentine pesos.
This recognition highlights our work in bringing music to hospitals, special education schools, nursing homes, and public welfare institutions in several countries, supporting people in difficult situations through art.
We thank TEVA for this recognition that validates our commitment to humanizing health.
The award was used to finance part of our Tour to Chubut and Río Negro in April 2024. This tour allowed us to bring our music and message of hope to more communities, extending our reach and impact in these provinces in southern Argentina.
A dream come true
BBC Outlook - Bringing music to people in pain
Released On: 11 Mar 2020
Listen the Jorge’s interview here (BBC Outlook website)
All this week at Outlook we’re launching the BBC Inspirations Awards 2020 – and we need your help. We’re asking you to nominate the unsung heroes in your life, so that we might celebrate their inspiring stories.
To get you thinking, today on Outlook we hear from Jorge Bergero – one of our amazing nominees from 2018.
Jorge is the principal cellist at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, one of the greatest concert halls in the world. In his spare time he runs Música para el alma, or, Music for the Soul – an organisation which plays music in care homes, hospitals, and anywhere else where people can’t make it to concert halls. The group started when Jorge and some musician friends played for Jorge’s partner Eugenia in a health clinic where she was receiving treatment for breast cancer. Jorge described it as an ‘epiphany’ and returned to play each month at the clinic, and even after Eugenia sadly passed away. Since then, the group has gone on to play at prisons, hospitals and schools – and now has over 2,500 musicians to call on. Two years after his nomination, Emily Webb caught up with Jorge. Música para el alma continue to tour, and have just returned from Colombia – but that’s not the only good news…!
Jimena Cruz is an indigenous woman born into a poor rural family in Chile. She grew up hearing the stories of indigenous people and history but was also fascinated by her local museum. It was this background that helped her to solve a 500 year-old mystery in the Atacama desert in the north of Chile. Our reporter Grace Livingstone went to meet her. Remember – to submit your nomination for the BBC Inspirations Awards 2020, visit: bbcworldservice.com/inspirations. Be sure to check out the terms and privacy notice.
Nominations close at 12 GMT on 9 April, 2020.
Picture: Jorge Bergero
Credit: Agustín Benencia
MPA in Penal Unit 47 of San Martín
San Martín, 10/30/19. – At the facilities of Unit 47 of San Martín, a chamber concert was held yesterday by the civil association of musicians Music for the Soul and the Triad Ensemble orchestra formed by women and men deprived of freedom there.
Music For the Soul is a solidarity project of musicians of symphony orchestras and choirs who want to accompany their music to people who go through difficult life situations. In this context, they visited Unit 47 where they provided a fun repertoire with the detainees.
The event took place during the morning in the SUM of the prison, and was attended by about 60 inmates. Present were the Criminal Execution Judge of San Isidro, Alejandro David, the General Director of Assistance and Treatment of the Buenos Aires Penitentiary Service, Eduardo Benavides, the Head of San Martín Complex, Carlos Suárez and the Secretary of Coordination of the Complex, Carlos Palmieri, between other authorities, prison staff and guests.
At the end of the musical meeting, those present shared an agape and some commented on their impressions: “It was the best day of my life and my conviction,” said Juan, one of the participating interns.
“For me it was one of the most exciting concerts we did,” said Jorge Bergero of Music for the Soul and thanked the authorities of the Complex “for all the work they do there, the love we all saw every day and the results that They feel and feel being there. We hope to return soon, we are all very moved. ”
The Chamber Orchestra “Triad Ensemble” is currently composed of 24 inmates housed in Unit 47 of San Martín, who learned music in prison and now play instruments such as cello, violin and viola. The project began with the support of the “El Cordal Ensamble” orchestra, in April 2018, based on the initiative of Dr. Alejandro David and accompanying this new initiative, the Ministry of Justice of the Province of Buenos Aires, through the Culture Department of the General Directorate of Assistance and Treatment of the SPB, provided instruments such as cello, violin and violas for the realization of the program.
Under the Kodaly conception, which takes over the musical language through the voice, the teaching team is headed by the director Carolina Wagner (musical language), Gustavo Nuñez (cello), Andrés Liendro (violin) and Sergio Bertagni (musical language) , who share their knowledge with detainees on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays during three hours of practical theoretical workshop.
Chaco and Corrientes Tour 2019
May 4th, 2019
More than 40 musicians Correntinos and Chaqueños have already registered to participate in our concerts at Resistencia and Corrientes Children’s Hospitals.
On Monday, May 20 we will go to the Pediatric Hospital Castelán and the Perrando Hospital accompanied by 30 colleagues of the Chaco Symphony, directed by the director of the Chaco Orchestra, Jorge Doumont.
On Wednesday 22 will be the turn of the Juan Pablo II Hospital in Corrientes, where we will be accompanied by 30 musicians from the Sinfónica de Corrientes, Directed by the director of the Sinfónica de Corrientes Andrea Fusco. The tour will also include the Cotolengo Don Orione and the García Hospital in Itatí.
There will be 6 concerts from May 19th to 22th, 2019.
This tour is sponsored by the Civil Association A.C.A.R.A.
BBC. Jorge Bergero is a nominee for Outlook Inspirations 2018
May 18th, 2018
Cellist Jorge Bergero set up Music for the Soul, a volunteer group of professional musicians who take music to people who can’t make it to concert halls.
They travel across Argentina and Latin America performing in homes for the aged and hospitals. The project was inspired by his former girlfriend, a fellow musician who died of cancer.
Jorge Bergero is a nominee for Outlook Inspirations 2018
March & April News. MPA moves forward.
March 18th, 2017
2017 begins with a new format of concerts named EAPP (Artistic Encounters for children). While a narrator tells a story, a text is interlaced with music. At the end of the story, the small patients are invited to play violins (small size, designed for the learning of children) and to share with the participation of musicians. This structure and concerts “debuted” in December 2016 in a Children’s Home of Lanús, In March we visited…
MPA awarded with the CILSA 2016 Award for Social Commitment
June 28th, 2016
MPA have been selected by CILSA, NGOs for inclusion, to give the CILSA Award for Music 2016 Solidarity Initiative According CILSA, this distinction is made for the eighth consecutive year, is to highlight publicly personalities of great social recognition, profile severally undertake for the good of others.
MPA greatly CILSA thanks for the honor of choosing.