In June of 2007 Traveling Notes organized its first international music encounter in the Dominican Republic. Eighteen U.S. and over forty Dominican students came together in Santo Domingo for the eight-day long festival. Students traveled from Virginia, New York, Texas and Puerto Rico. Four U.S.-based professional musicians, each with extensive international experience, provided the artistic leadership for the group. They worked closely with the Director of the Music School of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, the oldest university of the Americas, which hosted the event. The festival was supported by the U.S. Embassy of Santo Domingo with the donation of several scholarships. Many other prominent sponsors donated financial and in-kind contributions. The festival also generated a lot of interest from the local newspapers and TV stations.

In addition to ample time for practice and rehearsal, the program included seven concerts. Six of them took place in Santo Domingo: in a local shopping mall, a church in Gualey (one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods), a hospital and at the university. The closing concert was performed in the prestigious Aula Magna of the university and featured works of Vivaldi, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Strauss, as well as a delightful adaptation for string orchestra of Juan Luis Guerra’s “Bachata Rosa”. The students also performed a concert at the Viva Wyndham Beach Resort in Bayahibe, where the group stayed overnight and had some time to enjoy the DR’s white sandy beaches and crystalline waters.

When it came time to say goodbye, none of the participants wanted to leave. The surveys unanimously confirmed a very high level of satisfaction. Without exception all stated they would recommend the program to others.

Find out more about what the participants, their parents, as well as the neighborhood children for whom we played in the church of Gualey, said about the Traveling Notes program in their testimonials.

You can read and take a look at a day-by-day travel log and photo gallery of the festival.