"School-Bands Against Racism" is an EU funded project under Erasmus+. Three Partners, from Greece, the Netherlands and Austria learn about Racism, Discrimination and Music, will work together in order to learn more about each other, about their countries and people, their history, culture, music and traditions. During our visits we will exchange our results, get to know the similarities of our cultures and work together for common concerts. All students are between 14 and 19 years of age.We have several aims:1) To create a united school band consisting of all players from all partner institutions and perform public live music in the visited countries. To bring together students who play instruments or sing and encourage school bands across countries together with the other partner schools. Also to develop and support musical talent.2) We get to know each other and exchange in order to learn from each other how to deal with racism and discrimination. By travelling and organising activities in the partner countries we make the students cross boarders, enlarge their horizon to european conciousness, active EU-citizenship and democracy. We also want to give this experience to the people (pupils), who visit our concerts.3) To develop the students' digital skills by using online-platforms, making their own audio recordings and by producing a DVD - mixed, edited and mastered by the students themselves. Further by providing multilingual and multimedia presentations, on our topic racism and discrimination, as well as on the project itself. 4) To promote the use of different foreign languages when meeting each other, working together and making music as a universal language.5) To stimulate the musical-creative potential of all participants, working on common pieces of music concerning racism and discrimination. Background-Information as well as the Link between Racism and Discrimination and Music building Bridges ever since in history will be given and explained to the audiences and public.It is our vision to enhance communication, create friendship and partnership of the participating students and also teachers and establish common musical experiences through music and its power as a universal language all over the world.
Within the framework of the project “School Bands Against Racism“ three big bands from the partner countries Greece, the Netherlands, and Austria dealt with the topics discrimination and racism. In this connection the universal language was music. Through the close cooperation all participants could learn a lot from each other by means of intensive discussions and activities which were undertaken together. Apart from making music together above all, the cultural exchange was right at the top of our list of priorities. The students could talk about their home countries and by doing that they could learn a lot about the chulture, the traditions, and the history of the partner countries and in doing so they could find out both things we have in common and cultural differences. So, many international friendships arose by making friends with each other. This strong sense of unity and solidarity could be felt mainly during our joint performances on the stage. The project “Bands Against Racism“ pursued several goals. Together with all students of the three partner countries who are between 12 and 19 years old a joint school band was founded. In doing so we succeeded in inspiring and motivating the participating musicians and therewith in fostering their musical talents. By means of joint concerts in all partner countries a large audience could be convinced of the musicality of the talented youth. By trips and joint activities all participants were encouraged to leave their comfort zone and to open themselves for the cultural exchange. In a joint undertaking the students dealt not only intensively with European values and the awareness of democracy, but also with the topics racism and discrimination. Furthermore, we succeeded in passing on these experiences and impressions to the audience of our concerts. Beyond that also the digital skills of the students were promoted. Specially mixed, edited, and mastered videos were published on YouTube and can be called up on our website as well. (http://bandsagainstracism.com/Media/YouTube/) But in addition to the confrontation with the content also the musical and creative potential of the participants was stimulated by making music together. By means of music titles, which have a connection to the topics racism and discrimination, content and music could be connected with each other. Through a multilingual moderation and especially selected pieces of music, also the audience could be confronted with the topics and could be made thinking about it. By means of this project we did not only succeed in promoting the musical development of the participating students , but also in stimulating cultural exchange and the confrontation with the topics racism and discrimination. The joint experiences and concerts welded all participants tightly together and thus one of our main concerns could be reached by the means of the universal language of music: international friendships which will hopefully last still for a long time.