PRESS RELEASE

The International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation is holding a musical residency for young newcomers from the Red-Cross and Fedasil reception centres of asylum seekers in Belgium. The residency will take place from the 4^th until the 9^th of October at the Domaine de Farnières (Vielsam) in the context of the Creative Europe programme: UCREATE. Musical creation workshops will be led by four professional musicians and artists and given to 10 young aspiring musicians who are newcomers to Belgium.

Creating social connections through music

The objective of the UCREATE project, which includes the residency, is to facilitate the social inclusion of young migrants and refugees in European societies by enabling the creation of social connections between local populations and newcomers in Belgium through artistic creation. In Belgium, the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation is implementing music creation workshops to foster the exchange of artistic knowledge and to provide development and learning opportunities for young residents aged 19 to 27 from the Red Cross and Fedasil reception centres of asylum seekers in Belgium.

Objectives and programme of the residency  

The residency marks the beginning of an artistic training process aimed at promoting development opportunities for the young participants and creating a long-term relationship with the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation. Through the workshops, knowledge about music creation and educational tools will be transmitted to the young musicians. Motivated and interested participants will then be offered the opportunity to continue their musical training by attending other workshops. The aim is to empower participants with the ability to conduct the musical co-creation workshops of the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation in Belgium themselves. Designed by the International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation together with its musical director, Thierry Van Roy, to meet this educational objective, the residency workshops are both rich and diverse:

• Andor Timar – workshops on multi-sensory communication

This workshop aims to facilitate communication between the participants and the coordinators through movement and improvisation. It would facilitate musical co-creation by promoting better group cohesion from the first days of the residency.

• Aleksandar Caric – workshops on music co-creation

Aleksandar will initiate the creative process with the participants by sharing ideas, creating sequences as in folk and traditional music and exchanging musical motifs.

• Shanglie Zhou – combining music and images

The aim is to create and compose music collectively from video clips.

UCREATE: A European project

UCREATE is a project supported by the Creative Europe programme of the European Commission in which 4 cultural organisations located in Belgium (International Yehudi Menuhin Foundation), Hungary (MUS-E Hungary), Italy (Big Sur) and Portugal (Hangar) initiate an artistic project aiming at facilitating the social inclusion of young (19-27 years old) newcomers to Europe and creating spaces for exchange, encounter and co-creation between these young artists and the local communities. Each of the partner organisations is specialised in one artistic discipline (i.e., film, photography, art education, music).

For more information, attend the workshops, meet the participants and coordinators, please contact us!

Elise VANDERHOFSTADT [UCREATE Project Manager]

elise.vdh@menuhin-foundation.com | +32 (0) 470 60 57 10

Simon EYCHENNE [UCREATE Project Assistant]

simon.eychenne@menuhin-foundation.com | +32 (0) 470 55 21 36