[Serbia] Do We Hear Each Other? How one choir changes the idea of togetherness

'It really feels very good when you look at a room full of people doing their best to sing that song properly.' This is how Boško, a high school student and member of the Children's Drop in Shelter Choir in Belgrade, begins his story about the choir. 

The choir started in 2013 when Maja Ćurčić, co-founder of the 'Art Apparatus' Association, came to the shelter in Belgrade with a guitar and a few compositions. Her original aim was to help socialize children and youth through music. Today, this program has grown into a regional music educational platform which transcends the limitations and boundaries of language, gender, nationality, religion and age.

Maja works with Roma children aged 7 to 17 at two Drop in Shelters in Belgrade, using music pedagogy with the aim of social inclusion of vulnerable groups. Over the years of developing the process and repertoire, she points out that the biggest lesson for her has been designing and arranging interactions — within the choir itself at rehearsals, between the choir and other choirs, and for the choir in a wider social context.