Angelica de la Riva

In order to secure the performance of the Orquestra Criança Cidadã at the celebration of the 70th Anniversary of UNICEF, at the United Nations Headquarters, on December 12, 2016, Soprano Angelica de la Riva and pianist Max Barros will perform a Concert in an intimate pop-up space in the heart of New York.

In order to achieve this goal, your contributions will be made to a Donor Advised Fund established at the BrazilFoundation to benefit the Associação Beneficente Criança Cidadã, ABCC, from Recife, Brazil.

We have already covered the expenses for the airfare, visas and accommodation for the 43 members of the orchestra, and we are now asking for your kind support to provide meals and transportation for the 8 days of travel.

The Orquestra Criança Cidadã is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and it is a great privilege for its young musicians to be invited by UNICEF to play at its 70th Anniversary. This opportunity will certainly be an important step to the future, enabling the orchestra to showcase the work it has been doing for the past ten years, and the impact it has had on children’s lives. The performance will also be paramount for the organization to expand its current projects, reaching a wider audience and bringing hope to other talented children in Brazil.

The orchestra is a social program managed by the Associação Beneficente Criança Cidadã, ABCC, a non-profit organization, with headquarters in the city of Recife, the capital of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco. Conceived by Judge João José Rocha Targino, it has been operating since 2006, with the objective of providing social inclusion for underprivileged children through music.

Created to benefit the Coque neighborhood, which has the lowest Human Development Index in Recife, it currently supports 330 young people, aged between 6 and 21 years. Students receive lessons in string and woodwind instruments, percussion, music theory, flute and choir.

The program also includes educational, psychological, medical and dental care, digital inclusion classes, daily meals, uniforms and exchange programs for the most talented students. In addition, the orchestra guarantees the professionalization of students through the luthier and bow making training school, where the students learn the art of building and repairing string instruments and bows.

An exemplary social initiative, which has achieved remarkable results in Brazil, the orchestra has received more than twenty awards, among others, the Best Practices in Local Management, granted by Caixa Econômica Federal, a public development bank. In December 2010, the United Nations also recognized the orchestra as a good practice of social inclusion. In 2014, forty-three of its young musicians went to Italy, and had the honor to perform for Pope Francis.