In 2020, the Hilti Foundation initiated the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM) based on the experience of more than 15 years of engagement in the field of Music for Social Change. The establishment of AIM is a response to the great potential of the field to enable transformational learning. With the Firebird Fellowship, AIM offers pioneering training for teachers from social music programs around the world, recognizing their vital role in the empowerment of young people.

Like in many other developing countries, children and young people from South African’s Townships lack opportunities to develop their full potential. Music can make a difference. By making music collectively young people develop competencies and key life skills that can open the way to a self-determined future.

The objective in our focus area, Music for Social Change, is to empower young people through music to make conscious choices for life. We are concentrating on three initiatives: supporting grassroot programs, building bridges between music programs and the established music world, and the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM).

Regular collaboration with international musicians and orchestras is a key element of the Iberacademy curriculum. At the end of January, the Iberacademy Orchestra Medellín embarked on its next concert tour to Europe. The young musicians will perform at the first music festival of the year, the renowned "Mozartwoche Salzburg”, before traveling on to Feldkirch.

This was a dream coming true for the talented young musicians of the Sinfonía por el Perú Youth Orchestra when they crossed the ocean this late summer: Performing together with world-renowned tenor and founder of Sinfonía por el Perú, Juan Diego Flórez, at three of the most prestigious and important classical music venues.

In August 2022, the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM) gathered 40 students, the so called “Firebirds” for the immersive part of their Fellowship journey. Although the second cohort, this residency was the first of its kind, notably including 40 Firebird Young Leaders aged 13-17. This was no normal ‘orchestral music camp’ - teachers from music for social change programs came from Brazil, the Canary Islands, Colombia, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Uganda and the USA, along with young musicians, music program leaders, expert faculty and staff in Lisbon for over 3 weeks to experiment with transformational teaching and learning approaches.

It is almost a tradition when musicians from the Iberacademy Medellín and their young colleagues from the Stella Privathochschule Feldkirch form the "Pforte Kammerochester Plus" every spring and fall. As part of the chamber music program "Musik in der Pforte", the orchestra will be dedicated to contemporary music as well as the compositions of the great masters, in October 2022 Mozart and Beethoven. In the best chamber music tradition, the ensemble is led by the concertmaster.

Salzburg – Gstaad – Lucerne. These are the places where the Youth Orchestra Sinfonía por el Perú will give concerts during the last days of August and the first days of September. They will perform together with the world-famous tenor Juan Diego Flórez, who founded the social music program in Peru in 2011, and the Spanish conductor Roberto González-Monjas.

To travel abroad and perform at major international festivals is the dream of many young musicians. This dream is now becoming reality for the Youth Orchestra of Sinfonía por el Perú, which is touring Europe for the first time with its founder, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez.

“Side-by-side for a better future” is the motto under which the Academia Filarmónica Iberoamericana, or Iberacademy for short, based in Medellín, Colombia, is embarking on its second tour of Europe. The young musicians of the Iberacademy Orchestra will play impressive programs under the direction of Iberacademy founder Alejandro Posada and Roberto Gonzales-Mónjas, principal conductor of the Musikkollegium Winterthur, Switzerland.

After two years of intensive preparation, the Hilti Foundation has now established the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM) as an independent legal entity and non-profit foundation. Together, they are committed to drive positive systemic change in the Music for Social Change sector to enable young people to reach their full potential in life.

July is a member of the National Youth Choir in Sinfonía por el Perú. For her, being part of the program has opened a completely new world. Not only did she discover a talent she didn’t know she had, but she has also found her favorite way to express herself and her feelings through music.

Due to the pandemic, many programs in the field of music for social change had to adapt their ways of collaboration.

In this episode of In this Case we listen to Christine Rhomberg (Hilti Foundation), Gerald Wirth (Vienna Boys’ Choir) and Fiona Cunningham (AIM - Academy for Impact through Music) talking about the music programs the Hilti Foundation helps to fund and develop internationally.

Far beyond music education, the programs funded by the Hilti Foundation, aim to empower children and young people to overcome barriers and to grow personally.

The idea of music for social change was born in Venezuela in the 1970s and has since spread globally and inspired other programs.

The Hilti Foundation is aware of the allegations of sexual abuse against one of its projects, El Sistema Venezuela. The Hilti Foundation strongly condemns all acts of violence and abuse. We stand in solidarity with every victim of abuse, and we take survivors’ accusations seriously.

Ten years ago, the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez founded the social music programme"Sinfonía por el Perú". Based on the basic idea of the Venezuelan programme "El Sistema", music schools, so-called "Núcleos" were established in the hotspot neighbourhoods of Lima, and soon in the most vulnerable regions of the whole country.

Jahan’s schedule is always busy. He dreams of an international education and a career as an orchestra musician and teacher. A comprehensive, internationally networked music program, supported by the Hilti Foundation, makes this possible.

During a global pandemic, the world largely concentrates on those places that have been hit the hardest in terms of number of infections and deaths. Other global megacities have been subject to a more silent, yet possibly more fatal, surge in infections.