How to participate in the II Music to Grow contest in Bolivia

In order to encourage youth orchestras that promote the social inclusion of children and youths through musical teaching of excellence, CAF development bank of Latin America, the Federación de Empresarios Privados de Santa Cruz (Federation of Private Entrepreneurs of Santa Cruz), the Ministry of Tourism and Cultures of Bolivia  and the Departmental Government of Santa Cruz present the II Contest of Youth Orchestras of Bolivia, Music to Grow.

Registrations will be processed between September 1st and 30th. All symphonic and string youth orchestras of the nine departments in the country may participate. Each orchestra must include 50 musicians as a maximum and 15 as a minimum. No musician may be older than 25 years old, with the exception of the Director.  

To register, a form is availalble at www.caf.com and Facebook.com/ConcursoNacionalOrquestas, which must be filled, and a video of a piece of music determined by the Bases of the Contest must be presented.  

This documentation may be sent to one of the following addresses: 

• CAF development bank of Latin America, (Av. Arce Nº 2915 corner of Clavijo, San Jorge Area) La Paz - Bolivia.
• Federación de Empresarios Privados de Santa Cruz (Federation of Private Entrepreneurs of Santa Cruz) (Calle Rene Moreno Nº 259, Banco Nacional de Bolivia Building, 9th floor) Santa Cruz-Bolivia.

The documentation may also be sent electronically to the following e-mail address: agallardo@caf.com. In this case, the registration form must be sent together with the link to the video on YouTube.  

The jury will be made up by Maestro Freddy Terrazas as President and four members, two main jurors and two  substitutes. 

The first prize for each category, Symphonic Orchestra and Strings Orchestra, is of 42,000 Bolivianos. 

Contest agenda

• Registration. Registrations will be received from September 1st to 30th.  
• Pre-selection. All the videos of the registered orchestras will be evaluated following the established criteria, and 10 semi-finalists will be selected. This will be announced in the web pages of the organizing institutions and social networks, as well as the music pieces that must be interpreted in the following stage of the contest. 
• Semi-finalist training workshop. Between October 13th and 25th, the 25 selected semi-finalists will be trained by a group of Bolivian Maestros who will support them in the preparation of the repertoire that will be evaluated by the jury in the following stage. 
• Selection of 5 finalists. Between October 27th and November 8th, the 10 selected semi-finalists will be visited by the jury in their respective cities. During this stage, each orchestra will interpret two musical pieces live. On November 13th, the five finalist orchestras will be announced, as well as the musical pieces that must be interpreted in the final stage of the contest. 
• Training workshop. During the first 15 days of December, the 5 finalist orchestras will go to the city of Santa Cruz, where they will attend a five-day orchestra-training workshop, taught by Maestros from the Orchestra System of Venezuela. 
• Closing concert. After the workshop, on December 18th, the five finalist orchestras will present a public concert in Santa Cruz, where the jury will select the two winners.