Five years of building connections through music with Apropa Cultura

An orchestra usually measures its activity in terms of concerts and seasons. However, there are projects that are measured in a different way: in terms of people, shared experiences and relationships that grow over time. For the past five years, the Franz Schubert Filharmonia has been working with Apropa Cultura in Tarragona to bring music to people and groups who often face greater barriers to accessing cultural life. Five years of sharing experiences, emotions and moments of connection that have made music much more than an artistic expression: a tool for bringing people together.

As the lead organisation for the programme in the city of Tarragona, the Franz Schubert Filharmonia spearheads and promotes this initiative in the region, enabling dozens of groups to experience music from a participatory, accessible and inclusive perspective. This work forms part of the Franz Schubert Filharmonia Foundation’s social commitment and its desire to view culture as a space open to everyone.

Through the ‘An Orchestral Morning’ programme, people from a wide variety of backgrounds — ranging from groups linked to mental health, disabilities or chronic illnesses to older people, children and young people, refugees, women in vulnerable situations and homeless people — have the opportunity to experience the world of an orchestra from the inside. The experience combines participatory music therapy workshops, meetings with musicians from the Franz Schubert Filharmonia, and attendance at rehearsals without an audience at the Teatre Tarragona, enabling participants to discover music as an accessible, shared and transformative space.

Over the course of these five years of collaboration, more than 2,000 people have taken part in the activities organised jointly with Apropa Cultura. More than 50 workshops have been held, and over 40 musicians from the orchestra have taken part, sharing not only their musical talent but also their time, through a personal approach and their human experience.

For the Franz Schubert Filharmonia Foundation, this initiative forms part of an approach to culture that is committed to people. As its director general, Lali Grau, explains, “what we want is to promote the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities and those at risk of social exclusion, because we believe that the right to be moved is universal”.

This ongoing partnership has also left its mark on the orchestra’s musicians. Over the years, many of them have highlighted the sense of closeness and humanity fostered in these workshops, as well as music’s ability to connect people from very different backgrounds. It is a shared experience that often transforms both those who receive it and those who make it possible.

The collaboration between the Franz Schubert Philharmonia and Apropa Cultura is not limited to the workshops mentioned above. It also includes opening the orchestra’s rehearsals to vulnerable groups and providing access to tickets on special terms so that more and more people can enjoy live music at the season’s concerts.

Five years on, the project continues to grow, driven by the same conviction that inspired it from the outset: that music can be so much more than just an artistic experience. It can be a place where people come together. A shared language. A way of feeling part of something greater.

That is why, beyond the workshops, rehearsals and concerts, what has been built up over this time is a bond. A bond between music and people, between culture and inclusion, between Apropa Cultura and the Franz Schubert Philharmonic, which, year after year, continue to work together so that more and more people can find in music a welcoming space for participation and shared emotion.