23.7. 1993 Vitoria-Gasteiz / Spain - World Federation of Music Therapy

Music School also was conductor of the brass band.
This was our connection:
He (the headmaster) suggested a period-collaboration between
"Upbeat" and the brass band. "Kum ba yah, My Lord" and "Go
Down Moses" were now dressed in some new musical clothes.
"The People's Voice", a concert where the audience was asked
to sing along, was on the brass band's schedule later that
winter. "Upbeat" could play together with the brass band on that
occasion! We couldn't quite believe it......
The exercises began. With quite some proudness we saw how
six mentally handicapped musicians had "climbed mountains".
The pictures on the wall in the music room had now became a
natural part of their lifes, in more than one way. Under these
exercises - and in the intervals, filled with talking and
coffeedrinking - these musicians became a part of the musical
and social community. And, the uniforms, the uniforms....
The concert at "The People's Voice" was a kind of final break-
960
through for "Upbeat". Reidar played "Kum ba yah" on the
recorder. Together with him the top-administrator of the town-
hall, one of the members of the brass band, played his clarinet.
The contact between the two of them was not to be doubted.
This we could see; they poked and teased each other, and
smiled the whole time. When playing "Go Down Moses"
Solbjorg played a tremolo on the drum. She did this with such
enthusiasm that the audience applauded and she herself stood
up and shouted in triumph, her arms up in the air!
A dream was transformed to reality. Contacts were
established, and: these were contacts that could be kept
alive after the period-collaboration. We knew that the
members of "Upbeat" would meet the players of the
brass band everywhere in the small community of
Sandane: in a shop, in the library, in the tall-hown, at the
filling station etc.. These were places the members of
"Upbeat" were to use more than before now, since they