As the tour boat in New York Harbor approached the Statue of Liberty, Miranda Marín, a 12-year-old violinist from Venezuela, turned to a group of friends gathered near the bow and jumped up and down.
“We’re here!” she shouted, taking pictures of the statue’s crown. “Can you believe it?”
Marín, along with more than 160 members of the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela, had come to New York for a weeklong festival that ended on Wednesday at Carnegie Hall. The festival, known as World Orchestra Week, featured more than 700 student musicians from 38 countries, including China, Nigeria, Germany, Afghanistan, Israel, Ukraine and the United States.
When they were not practicing Beethoven, Ginastera or folk music, the young artists toured New York by boat, bus and subway, venturing out for pizza and ice cream. The Venezuelans held a dance party and played a card game called caída on a Circle Line cruise. The Afghan students toured the Juilliard School and the United Nations and visited the top of Rockefeller Center.
Night after night, the students were Carnegie’s main attraction, taking to the stage to perform Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Dvorak and more with their orchestras. And night after night, the hall was packed — while tens of thousands of people, including friends and family back home, tuned in to live broadcasts by the classical music station WQXR.
The Venezuelans, whose time at the festival coincided with the eruption of violence and unrest in their country after a disputed presidential election, brought the house down with an encore of the mambo from “West Side Story.” The Afghans, who had fled Kabul for Portugal after the Taliban reasserted control in 2021, earned whistles and cheers for a program featuring traditional instruments like the rubab, sitar and tabla.
For many students, World Orchestra Week, the first of its kind in Carnegie’s history, provided a moment of escape from political and economic turmoil back home. With the help of translation apps and Instagram, they built cross-cultural friendships, sharing Taylor Swift songs, tips on mastering complicated rhythms and photos of pet hamsters and celebrity crushes.
“For a few very short minutes,” said Inérzio Macome, a 23-year-old cellist from Mozambique, “we can forget everything bad in the world and focus on what we love.”
Some said they felt guilty at times because they were in a safe and comfortable place while their relatives were suffering.
Zohra Ahmadi, a 15-year-old trumpet player, has been trying to reassure her 12-year-old sister back in Afghanistan, who can’t enroll in school.
“She’s always sending me messages and crying and asking, ‘What should I do?’” she said. “I don’t know how I can comfort her.”
Her cousin, Farida Ahmadi, a 15-year-old violinist, has recently received messages from friends who are having trouble finding food and shelter.
“It’s hard for those who are living there, and it’s hard for those who are far from there,” she said. “It’s really difficult to hold it all in yourself. We’re just wondering what the future is for our country.”
The trauma of war sometimes resurfaced in unexpected ways.
Laila Haimovich, a 17-year-old violist from Israel, was anxious when a fire alarm went off during a rehearsal: It reminded her of an air raid siren. Haimovich, who is part of Polyphony, an ensemble that brings together young Arab and Jewish musicians, asked an American colleague if the United States had bomb shelters. He gave her a confused look.
“Everyone was so chill about it,” she said. “But for us, the war is constant.”
Haimovich said she had new appreciation for a piece that she was playing in New York: “Scheherazade” by Rimsky-Korsakov, inspired by the tale of a woman who must tell stories to save her life. When a conductor asked if anyone in the orchestra could imagine a situation in which they would not know if they might live another day, Haimovich nodded.
“We know these feelings,” she said.
Dana Ileimi, a 17-year-old Palestinian violinist in Polyphony, said music had allowed her to stay grounded since the Israel-Hamas war broke out in October.
“The war saddens me, thinking of all the innocent civilians,” she said. “This is only a temporary escape.”
World Orchestra Week was conceived by Carnegie Hall several years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas war and the tumult in Venezuela. Top conductors and soloists signed on to lead the youth ensembles in programs that included arduous staples of the repertoire and pieces with more local flair.
Gustavo Dudamel, the renowned Venezuelan maestro, conducted Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 and other works with the National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela. He also led a mass “play in” with a nearly 700-person orchestra at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan on Monday.
Ivan Fischer led the European Union Youth Orchestra in a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. Marin Alsop was on the podium with the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America for a performance of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” with the pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Lü Jia led the Beijing Youth Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. Teddy Abrams conducted a world premiere by Jasmine Barnes with NYO2, an American ensemble. (The American groups were created by Carnegie Hall.)
At a reception, Clive Gillinson, Carnegie’s executive and artistic director, praised the students’ artistry and encouraged them to get to know each other.
“These will be friendships and relationships,” he said, “that you will all have for life.”
Dudamel, who performed in a cafeteria at the United Nations when he was a violinist in the children’s symphony in the mid-1990s, said in an interview that the young artists showed courage by making music in a difficult time.
“What they bring is beauty, hope, optimism and the pride of their identities,” he said. “This is a new generation.”
After a rehearsal with the Venezuelan ensemble, he lingered to record videos for the children to send back home, offering birthday greetings and blowing kisses.
In one video, he held up a fist. “Adelante siempre,” he said, or “always forward.”
In workshops on the campus of New York University, where many of the students were staying, they practiced relaxation techniques and talked about life back home. The activities felt forced at times, but after some awkward silences, the students warmed up to one another, holding hands, striking goofy poses and watching YouTube clips showcasing traditional Afghan, Indian and Chinese instruments.
At one point, the students wrote down wishes for the world on satin ribbons; their words were displayed at Carnegie Hall before each concert.
“Women must have their voice and their dreams,” wrote a student from Afghanistan.
“Liberation for all oppressed peoples,” wrote a student from Nigeria.
“May love conquer war,” wrote a student from China.
At one workshop, Shogufa Safi, 20, an Afghan percussionist, introduced herself to musicians from the United States, China and South Africa. She described how she had fled Afghanistan with her teachers and classmates at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music after the American withdrawal in 2021.
“I came from a country that doesn’t have peace and freedom,” she said, describing the scarcity of jobs and educational opportunities, especially for girls.
Her account was startling to some of her peers, including Brandon Garcia, an 18-year-old double bass player from Miami, who offered a hug.
“There are awful situations around the world,” he said, “and hearing from a person who has experienced these struggles firsthand is really alarming.”
Sun Siyu, a 20-year-old Chinese flute player, invited Safi to visit China, and asked her if she liked living in Portugal.
“Portugal is a calm country,” Safi replied.
During their time in New York, the young musicians tried to stay focused on the music. But politics and unrest sometimes interfered.
On the night of the concert by the Venezuelans, a human rights group displayed a sign outside Carnegie accusing Dudamel of acting as a “puppet and henchman” for President Nicolás Maduro, who has claimed victory in an election that international observers have described as undemocratic. The National Children’s Symphony of Venezuela is affiliated with El Sistema, the government-financed program that teaches music to children, many from poor families, in which Dudamel trained.
In an interview a day earlier, Dudamel had said that he believed in “a democratic Venezuela” and added, without naming either candidate: “The most important thing is the people and the voice of the people.”
At the concert, the mood was festive. Audience members waved bandannas and Venezuelan flags. Somebody yelled “Venezuela libre!”
Moises Primera, a 17-year-old flute player, recited El Sistema’s motto from the stage: “Tocar, cantar y luchar,” or play, sing and fight.
From the podium, Dudamel, who will become the New York Philharmonic’s music and artistic director in 2026, did not directly address the politics of the moment. In a brief speech, he described the pride he felt watching the students.
“This is the Venezuela that we want,” he said.
At the play in at the Javits Center, the students performed a movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, a work by Ginastera and John Williams’s “Olympic Fanfare and Theme.”
Standing in front of the supersized orchestra, Dudamel joked that he might have to send a text message to cue the brass section.
“This is the power of music: to see all of this wonderful diversity of cultures, of ideas, of language, of lifestyle,” he said. “This is the world represented in each one of you.”
In the violin section, Marín, the Venezuelan, beamed. As she looked over her music, she said she was thinking of her family back in Venezuela.
“We are sad, but we have to stay focused,” she said. “We are trying to give people hope, joy and happiness with the notes that we play. We have to give them the motivation to keep going.”
