Dresden’s Sounds of Home:

Eleven-member brass band "Banda Comunale" invites refugee musicians from around the world to be part of “Banda Internationale". New sound, new songs and new friends.

In cooperation with professional and amateur musicians from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Palestine and Burkina Faso, Banda Internationale produces a concert programme combining music from the countries of origin of all involved, from Afghan pop songs, to traditional pieces from Lebanon and metal vibes from Iran.

Banda Internationale is a collective of refugee and non-refugee musicians. They are united by the desire to change the existing conditions in Saxony, especially those in Dresden. They believe that prejudices should be dismantled and replaced with bridges between cultures, religions, and ethnicities. Through their music, they doing their best to help integration succeed and a more open Saxony to emerge.

In the early fall of 2015, the musicians of “Banda Comunale,” a brass band that formed in Dresden 15 years ago, began to look for musicians among the refugees arriving in the city, and they created a new constellation: Banda Internationale. Together, they are re-interpreting the concept of “folk music” by broadening their repertoire to include the music of the homelands of all of the participants. In weekly rehearsals, the musicians have worked together to arrange musical numbers – leading to a CD recording in the fall of 2016 and a German concert tour. The band has played more than 150 concerts together, and in 2017, the collective launched a project called “The Kids Are Alright.” For this project, the long-time and new members of the band hold workshops at Saxon schools; they have also started a band with unaccompanied refugee minors.

The success of the band and the enthusiasm with which they have been received by audiences is not surprising (everyone loves good music); what is truly remarkable about the project is the dedication of the musicians to the band. All of the initial members, as well as many of the new members, have day jobs. Despite the demands of work, family, learning the German language, and navigating German bureaucracy, they all generously give their time to their music, to each other, their community in Dresden, and to their audiences all over Germany.

Yes

After almost 150 concerts in the past 2,5 years and the successful integration of instruments like violin, cello and oud into a brass-band we could contribute maybe a new idea of brass music to the listener and some new ideas about open society and getting active as a band in general. We also produced a documentary movie about our project, that we could show to you (subtitled):

https://films2017.dok-leipzig.de/en/film/?ID=18061&title=Waiting+for+the+Summer’s+Return

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/german-band-refugees-welcome-dresden/

In the past three years, Dresden has been something like the epicenter of the continuing social debate about asylum rights, xenophobia, and integration. It is the home of PEGIDA, (Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung der Abendland; Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident), a group which began protesting against the supposedly encroaching threat of Islam in 2014. By 2015, they were drawing tens of thousands of people to their Monday protests against immigration and what they perceived to be eroding German values. From early on, the eleven-person Banda Comunale regularly appeared in the demonstrations against the PEGIDA movement, going out on the streets on Monday evenings to defend democratic values and humanistic convictions. They led marches, played at rallies, and took part in the organization of public events to counter PEGIDA’s anti-Islam and anti-foreigner rhetoric.

In the summer of 2015, the focus shifted. Thousands of refugees arrived in Dresden, and the failures in their housing and care, as well as numerous xenophobic and extremist riots in front of the places where they were very provisionally being housed, put Dresden in the national news on a regular basis.

After engaging themselves tirelessly in the anti-PEGIDA effort, Banda Comunale began to play concerts in these “reception centers.” It was at one of these concerts in the summer of 2015 that the idea for a long-term project involving refugee musicians arose.

The now nearly twenty-member collective of musicians from Syria, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, and the Burkina Faso has won numerous prizes and played 150 concerts throughout Germany, with the common goal of interpreting folk music, and the national musical cultures of all its musicians, anew. They want to open hearts, dismantle resentments, and contribute to understanding between new and long-term Dresdeners, Germans, and Europeans.

The collective plays an especially integrative role in Saxony, the German state where the musicians live and often perform, and they would like to continue to develop their current projects in the region. Among these is the band itself, but also new endeavors like the band project with unaccompanied refugee minors and workshops in Saxon schools and youth centers, which the members of the collective conceived themselves and have carried out together on an equal basis. For this, they were honored with a Power of the Art prize from the Philip Morris foundation. Banda would like to continue the project with young people throughout Saxony, especially in smaller cities like Bautzen, Zittau, Plauen, Pirna, Freital, Heidenau and Görlitz, where rightwing extremists have dominated public discourse and a positive example of integration is badly needed.

The music project Banda Internationale was announced as the Winner of the 11th edition of the Anna Lindh Euro-Med Dialogue Award at the Bestowing Ceremony that took place at the impressive Estonian Film Museum in Tallinn on 14 December 2017: "All applications presented amazing projects, contributing to intercultural dialogue and understanding in the Mediterranean region. It was a really difficult decision, but in the end we felt that Banda Internationale does not only promote tolerance and fights xenophobia and racism, but also makes sure to include refugees in shaping the design of the project on an eye-to-eye level. They foster and celebrate the contribution of refugees to the cultural diversity in Germany, and prove that intercultural dialogue through music can be a means for refugees to become part of existing communities.” (http://www.annalindhfoundation.org/news/banda-internationale-wins-euro-med-dialogue-award-2017)

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