A Symphony Scored from a School District’s 1,000 Broken Instruments

by Allison Meier on May 4, 2017
Hyperallergic

When Robert Blackson learned about the broken instruments in Philadelphia’s public schools, he turned them into a creative opportunity: the Symphony for a Broken Orchestra.

The School District of Philadelphia has over 1,000 broken musical instruments, from flutes with bent keys to trombones missing slides. Some of their fixes are easy, others complex, yet due to funding cuts in the city, the district doesn’t have a budget for either. Each broken instrument represents a student who’s unable to participate in music programs. When Robert Blackson, director of exhibitions and public programs at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art, learned about the issue, he saw an opportunity to draw attention to the struggle of music education, while also raising money for repairs.