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It’s an evening of pure joy, and a story that has caught the world’s imagination. The Recycled Orchestra features gifted young musicians performing timeless music on instruments made entirely of recycled trash. Formed in the impoverished Paraguayan town of Cateura in 2007, the Recycled Orchestra is the fruit of a program designed to provide young people orchestral training, and the rich life skills that come with it, all fueled by the joy of music.
Dubbed “the Landfill Harmonic,” the ensemble’s instruments are amazing re-inventions, created using materials salvaged from their town’s one industry, an enormous landfill. Cellos are fashioned from oil drums, saxophones made from drainpipes, drumheads from old X-films. The Recycled Orchestra is transformation incarnate, both turning garbage into an orchestra and lives of hopelessness into ones of inspiration and purpose. The ensemble has toured the world, even performing with Metallica and Stevie Wonder, and the subject of a new musical debuting next year, Basura, by Gloria Estefan.