Yuval Ron: Music as a Path to Wisdom
Miriam Knight: I understand, Yuval, that you have just started a nonprofit foundation. Can you tell us about it?
Yuval Ron: The foundation is called Inspired Sound Initiative, and you can see it online, Inspiredsoundinitiative.org. The reason for starting this nonprofit organization is a vision that I have to try to bring more of the work that I do with children to communities that would never get the work that I do. So, Yale University can afford to bring ten artists of my ensemble across the country for a residency. And sometimes universities like Yale and University of Chicago and many other universities, John Hopkins, UCLA, sometimes they gift an event to a community school.
Sometimes they send me to do outreach in a city school, but most of the time schools that lost the arts, that have no music and have no visiting artists, communities that are in poverty and radicalism, not just in America but all over the world.
I just came from India a week ago, I was told by leaders of the Muslim community that the radicalism, Islamic radicalism in India is now highest in the poorest neighborhood of Muslim communities in Rajasthan. They are very concerned about that.
And I did a workshop in Rajasthan a week ago for children in these poor neighborhoods to bring them together and to teach them the songs about sharing, about creating unity, about accepting other kids of other religions. That’s the kind of work that needs to be done.
And because the communities that need us the most don’t have the resources, I decided to create a nonprofit organization that will raise the money from corporations and from foundations and from donors and sponsors and gift the work that I do to the schools and communities around the world that have no resources.
So, the workshop that we just did in Rajasthan in Ajmer, in that school that brought together Muslims, Hindu, Sikh, and Christian children together. We went there and gifted the workshop to the school. Everything was gifted by my foundation to that school.
We want to do more of that in the States and around the world. We want to train other musicians how to do this work so we grow and we have other ambassadors and other organizations all around the world doing the same kind of work that we do, training children to become citizens who care about harmony, peace, and beauty and unity using music and dance.
