The music schools
The philanthropic half: keeping music schools alive where learning an instrument is anything but obvious. Instruments, teachers paid every month, rooms, transport. In Burundi, Cuba, Romania and Scampia.
The music schoolsSince 2016
Bringing people
together with music
Echoo has two souls. A philanthropic one: we support music schools in places where a guitar costs a month's wages — in Burundi, Cuba, Romania and Scampia. And an artistic one: we back projects that give young Italian artists room to work.
Everything we do starts with people who play.
4music schools supported
2014the first container of instruments
2,000Chiquitica guitars built and sold
40house concerts, about 1,200 people
Why music
Music makes life better
It teaches us to know ourselves, to enjoy our emotions, to give shape to our creativity. It helps us recognise and steer our instincts, and to talk and connect with other people without needing words.
It is a way to learn, to share and to pass on a message, a culture, a way of seeing the world — in a language everyone understands. In short, it is a very great gift.
And it is an even greater gift for anyone living through hardship: in a hospital or a prison; in a poor country, perhaps under a dictatorship, or simply in a difficult neighbourhood of a big city. You can also suffer inside the gears of a complicated life that looks perfect from outside, in the prison of loneliness.
We want to bring music to every one of those people. We are called Echoo because that is exactly what happens: the music that leaves here comes back multiplied, in another voice and another language.
An echo is not a copy. It is the same thing said from somewhere else, and that is why it sounds different. The schools we support are not ours: they belong to the people who play in them, and what they send back is always worth more than what we sent out.
Two souls
The artistic projects
The artistic half: backing projects that give young Italian artists room to work, where music gets made and shared instead of staying shut in the rehearsal room. The first one is Van Session.
The artistic projectsWhere we work
All the schools01
Burundi — Amahoro school
Amahoro means peace. It started in 2014 in Bujumbura with a container of instruments shipped from Italy, and it was the first music school in the country. Today it carries on in Rutovu and Mugamba.
The Amahoro school02
Cuba — Sonríe school
In Rodas we bought a small house and we pay the teachers: music, singing, theatre and crafts for children, older people, adults and people with disabilities.
The Sonríe school03
Romania — Maria Ward centre
We supported the music room of the centre that looks after the children of Rădăuți, in the north of the country.
The Maria Ward centre04
Scampia — Millecolori choir
A choir of Roma and Neapolitan children: treble voices, percussion, guitars and wind instruments. We helped pay the teachers and the minibus that takes the children to rehearsals.
The Millecolori choir
Artistic projects
Van Session,
music on wheels
A bus turned into a travelling recording studio: at every stop someone gets on, someone gets off, and the music is written on the road. It is the first of the projects through which we give young Italian artists room to work.
Started in Trento with Centro Musica Trento, the youth-policy project of the City of Trento entrusted to UpDoo! oo, run by Lorenzo Frizzera.
And also
Everything we do
Second-hand shop
Almost every week somebody gives us an instrument. The best ones go to the schools; the rest we sell in our shop at Centro Musica Trento.
Come and see
Concerts and house concerts
Theatre concerts and evenings in the homes of people who open their living room to us. Every ticket goes straight to one of the schools.
The concerts
European volunteers
We host young people from the European Solidarity Corps: they live in Rovereto for a few months and work with us on the projects.
About usFive ways
to lend a hand
You do not have to be a musician. You only need something we are short of: an instrument in the attic, a free living room, two hours on a Saturday.
Who works with us
Partners
