International Orchestra of Refugees

The International Orchestra of Refugees (IOR) is designed to create residences for musicians who have been forcibly displaced from their homes. Its mission is to drastically improve experiences of refugees, both before and after resettlement. Music enables peace-building by bringing different people together in shared and communicative experiences. By connecting refugee musicians with each other, professional musicians, and audiences around the world, we aim to give a platform for refugees to share their humanity and their voices through music. This highlights the value instead of the burden of refugees, and in the process builds bridges between different cultures that will become increasingly necessary to maintain stable societies. While the numbers of musicians we can serve may be small compared to the total number of refugees around the world, we wish to empower them to be ambassadors for refugees and ambassadors for peace in the communities they live in.

Our world is buckled under the worst refugee crisis since World War II, where less than 1% of refugees are resettled into a third country. The refugee crisis is one of the most pressing challenges we are facing today. The number of people forced from their homes by conflict and war is the highest its ever been: 70.8 million people. Almost 60% of these persons are under the age of 25. These people live with the daily stress and anxiety of being forcibly displaced, and one person is displaced every two seconds. The forecasted trajectory isn’t promising; the International Organization for Migration forecasts 200 million environmental migrants by 2050.

Our team at the International Orchestra of Refugees is seeking refugee musicians around the globe, highlighting their resiliency, hope, and strength of their human spirit. In addition to abiding by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, we will also be seeking persons that have been displaced due to climate change, as climate refugees have not yet been internationally defined. An objective is to engage the global community, including policymakers, strategists, and global leaders, into a paradigm shift on the refugee crisis, inviting others to see the talent and contribution from within refugee communities.

The International Orchestra of Refugees is a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower displaced musicians to become musical ambassadors of peace, through orchestral opportunities and collaborative community. We envision identifying and empowering talented refugee musicians to connect and use orchestral music to create opportunities to prosper. As part of this vision, we acknowledge many refugees lack access to the musical instruments they used to play, so we will solicit donations of instruments to enable as many as possible to resume their musical activities. The IOR is designed to create residences for musicians who have been forcibly displaced from their homes. Its objective is to travel from refugee site to refugee site recruiting displaced, refugee musicians into a full-sized conventional orchestra.

As a precursor to a physical International Orchestra of Refugees, the IOR team is developing a digital database connecting displaced musicians with opportunities around the globe. From this virtual orchestra will spawn a physical orchestra, one that embodies hope and the strength of the human spirit.

This is a peace-building enterprise for one of the world's greatest crises. The IOR gives these people who are displaced the opportunity to prosper, not just survive.

Throughout history, civilizations have been remembered through the arts. With over 70 million displaced persons, refugees can come together to use music and art to write their story, and change the future. While many of these displaced musicians come from different parts of the world speaking different languages, music is the one language we all have in common. Music has a great unifying power, and we are looking to build on this, to actively and meaningfully engage refugees and the global community. While the concept of using music as an ambassador of peace isn’t novel, it is when applied to the refugee crisis. In light of the universality of music, our initiative is to open the eyes of the world to the talent and potential of refugees. After developing the online platform, this would be the world’s first virtual orchestra connecting displaced musicians together into one song. Moreover, this would be the world’s first orchestra of refugee musicians, whose mission has the capacity to cross borders.

As a precursor to a physical International Orchestra of Refugees, the IOR team is developing a digital database, with an interface resembling a virtual orchestra through our domain at www.IORefugees.org. All musicians will have a detailed media profile complete with audio and visual recording, where, when put together, will produce an interactive virtual orchestra with musicians from around the globe playing the same song. Through this digital database, we connect displaced musicians to employers and opportunities by tapping into the gig economy. Additionally, we connect displaced musicians to one another. In major metropolitan cities around the world, we will generate satellite ensemble groups, connecting them with the respective town’s symphonic orchestra.

Music is part the human experience. There is an unshakable bond of trust between musical collaborators, one born out of mutual respect, with everyone playing a song — a narrative — that they all believe in. Throughout history, civilizations have been remembered through the arts. With over 70 million displaced persons, refugees can come together to use music and art to write their story, and change the future.

Moreover, our mission is to engage the global community into a paradigm shift on the refugee crisis, inviting others to see the talent and contribution from within refugee communities. The IOR supports the Sustainable Development 2030 Agenda and its goals, such as Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions), Goal 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), and Goal 13 (Climate Action).

The International Orchestra of Refugees is currently serving five refugee musicians. In a year’s time, we hope to construct profiles for at least 30 refugee musicians as a means to showcase a proof of concept. Meanwhile, we will be using the database as a means to build satellite IOR ensembles in metropolitan cities across the globe. By 2023, we will have a minimum of 500 refugee musicians registered in our virtual database. From the 500 refugee musicians, we will compile a group to form the very first residencies for the International Orchestra of Refugees, a physical, full-sized, conventional orchestra.

Within the next year, the IOR will develop infrastructure for virtual orchestra and online database web platform. Following, we will commence recruitment into the IOR Virtual Database, and finalize the organization’s infrastructure, along with securing the 501(c)3.

By 2023, we will: 

1. Establish organization's infrastructure and operational standards 

2. Establish Financial infrastructure and Fundraising Strategy 

3. Create a recruitment campaign 

4. Develop a strong, and safe platform to showcase and connect talented refugee musicians to opportunities (min. 500 musicians registered) 

5. Establish multiple refugee ensembles in major cities around the world 

6. Establish database of refugee musicians 

7. Create the International Orchestra of Refugees

The following are barriers that exist for the IOR for the next five years:

• Financial

  • Operating revenues for major world-class symphony orchestras are immensely large, with some figures ranging from 7, to even 8, figures. Meanwhile, many of these orchestras experience a deficit by their end-of-year annual report. That being said, the International Orchestra of Refugees is a newly developed non-profit organization with no seed funding.

• Legal

  • The largest barrier is borders. Refugees can live in a camp for an average of 12 years. During that time, it’s difficult for new organizations to gain access to camps, and even more difficult for refugees to leave those camps. If that’s the case, building a touring orchestra of refugees seems futile, yes?

  • Per the 1951 Refugee Convention by the UNHCR, climate refugees aren’t internationally defined yet. Can people displaced by climate events participate?

• Cultural

  • Because this is a multi-national operation, can a conductor feasibly work with an orchestra with its members speaking different languages coming from different parts of the globe?

• Technical

  • How does one go about building a virtual orchestra, where musicians from around the world play a song that is in sync?

  • How conventional of an orchestra will this be? Is it limited to just traditional orchestral instruments?

• Operational

  • How can we ensure that this is accessible to displaced refugee musicians to all parts of the globe? Do we have the resources to create media profiles for all of these musicians onto our virtual orchestra?

• Financial

  • What sets this orchestra apart from others is our mission. We are responding to one of the largest global crises of our time. We will rely on public and corporate donors, governments, and grants to sustain our operations. From the virtual orchestra, satellite ensembles, and touring orchestra, we will help our refugee musicians be self-sufficient, helping to empower displaced musicians to become stronger and more confident in controlling one’s life, and claiming one’s rights.

• Legal

  • While we work multilaterally with NGO’s, governments, and various institutions on how to move refugees across borders, our work will primarily be virtual. In the virtual landspace, you don’t have to worry about borders. 

  • We will also be looking for candidates that don’t fit within the parameters of the 1951 Refugee Convention, like climate refugees. 

• Cultural

  • We come together as musical ambassadors of peace in pursuit of diverse ideas, cultures, languages, and beliefs. We honor our differences, and uphold the common language of music that brings us together.

• Technical

  • In collaboration with the right UX designers and engineers, we will produce a single track on our virtual orchestra web page played by refugee musicians across the globe.

  • We will commission composers to write and arrange pieces that take into account the different instruments played by refugee musicians, not limiting ourselves to the instrumentation of traditional classical music repertoire.

• Operational

  • With the help of our creative team and a broad network of humanitarian organizations, we will work to develop media profiles of musicians globally.

Volunteer Staff: 4

• Executive Director
• Creative Director
• Creative Strategist
• Senior Brand Identity Developer

Members in the IOR Board of Directors: 6

• Sebastian Agignoae, Chair of IOR Board, Harvard University
• Michelle Lieb, Vice-Chair of IOR Board
• Anthony Molinaro, Loyola University Chicago
• Denese Neu, Ph.D, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
• Maureen Straub Kordesh, John Marshall Law School
• Karen AbuZayd, United Nations Human Rights Council

International Orchestra of Refugees, Inc., is a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower displaced musicians to become musical ambassadors of peace, through orchestral opportunities and collaborative community. The Board of Directors is compromised of six professionals who specialize in the fields of diplomacy, law, government, strategy, and music. Additionally, the team consists of an executive director, creative director, creative strategist, and senior brand identity developer. As a function of time, we intend on our teaming growing larger, and stronger.

Team leader Sebastian Agignoae serves as the chairman of the board for IOR. He founded the organization October of 2017, shortly after Sebastian's dad revealed his story of being a refugee who escaped from Romania at the height of the communist regime. He is now a candidate for the Master’s Degree in Public Policy at Harvard University for the class of 2021. He's the son of a refugee, and it’s the refugee people he will serve.

The International Orchestra of Refugees partners with the Refugee Nation, a collective of creatives that partnered with refugees across the globe to create a flag and an anthem to represent the refugee athletic team at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The Refugee Nation flag was designed by Yara Said, a Syrian refugee artist who was inspired by the colors of the life vests. The Refugee Nation Anthem was written by Moutaz Arian, a Syrian refugee composer. In Arian’s words: “Music is my best way to deliver a message to humanity to love each other. This language doesn’t need translation.” Since our partnership in 2018, we have integrated the refugee flag into our branding strategy, and have worked with their strategists in optimizing our virtual orchestra.

Our team at the International Orchestra of Refugees is seeking refugee musicians around the globe, highlighting their resiliency, hope, and strength of their human spirit. In addition to abiding by the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, we will also be seeking persons that have been displaced due to climate change, as climate refugees have not yet been internationally defined. An objective is to engage the global community, including policymakers, strategists, and global leaders, into a paradigm shift on the refugee crisis, inviting others to see the talent and contribution from within refugee communities.

Our business model is broken down into four phases (not to be confused with the seven objectives of our 5 year strategic plan):

1. Development

   1. Developing the institutional framework for the IOR and our web platform

2. Recruitment into Virtual Orchestra

   1. Recruiting displaced musicians into virtual database: refugees, IDP’s, asylum seekers, climate refugees

3. IOR Ensembles

   1. Forming ensembles in major, resilient cities around the world

4. International Orchestra of Refugees

   1. Recruiting from the Virtual IOR Orchestra database to form a full-sized, conventional, touring, physical orchestra

Key Resources: IORefugees.org platform, Brand, Partnerships with humanitarian organizations in camps and governments

Key Activites: Ensemble Concerts

Cost Structure: Online platform, Staff

Revenue: Grants, Donations, Corporate Sponsorships, Merchandise, Ticket sales

The IOR operates under the premise that music is the one language we all have in common. That being said, the total accessible market should be persons with an interest in music, a large market group. At least a third of our revenue is projected to be derived from a public donor network upon the approval of our 501(c)3 not-for-profit status. Additionally, a majority of funding will come from grants and corporate sponsorship. We will leverage relationships made with established orchestras, recording artists, and international humanitarian groups to promote the IOR.

Operating on a business to consumer model, our typical consumer would be a supporter of the arts, and/or of refugees. Our team will identify communities that show most support toward refugees. Then, we will conduct a spiral-branding marketing campaign to increase the reach of our demographic. This serves a dual purpose of increasing revenue, and conducting a wide-reach advocacy campaign.

Ecommerce will be hosted through the domain belonging to the International Orchestra of Refugees. Retail may be hosted through IOR pop-up shops in line with IOR ensemble performances, and outsourced through third party retail sellers. Current merchandise developments include partnering with refugee fashion-house collectives to design a clothing line for the public consumer inspired by the IOR musician’s performance attire, a design (in progress) for all displaced musicians affiliated with the IOR around the globe. 

With the right foundations, we project the IOR satellite ensembles to be self-sufficient. Moreover, we project these refugees to prosper.

Per Solve’s mission of solving the world’s most pressing problems through open innovation and partnership, the International Orchestra of Refugees, through social impact and lasting, transformational change, is addressing one of the world’s most pressing public challenges: the refugee crisis. As a newly developed humanitarian arts organization, we seek counsel as we navigate implementing this model in the refugee community. We are always learning a more effective understanding in working multilaterally with different governments, NGO’s, and various institutions. IOR’s virtual orchestra is critical as a precursor in launching the International Orchestra of Refugees. With the proper financial, network, and community support, we are confident Solve can help accelerate our mission, especially as it comes to developing the virtual orchestra and online database of displaced musicians. With the help of Solve’s extensive network and premiere in-house expertise, IOR’s mission and strategic plan can be implemented in a way that allows refugees to prosper, not just survive.

The more relationships we develop with humanitarian aid organizations that conduct work in refugee communities, the stronger chance we have of populating our database with displaced musicians. As it pertains to conducting work in foreign countries, it would be to our benefit if we receive support from any local or national governments. With this in mind, having support from a major entity like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees would help accelerate any ground or administrative operations. Secondly, partnerships with major arts organizations would help as we implement means to introduce our initiative to the public, like by way of the Grammy Foundation, or having refugee artists work in collaboration with professional musicians. Lastly, it’s imperative we start developing means to connect with web developers and digital designers to construct the infrastructure for our virtual orchestra. Institutions such as MIT Media Lab, or Active Theory based in California, would help organize a user experience that links our refugee orchestra to the international community in a way that highlights resiliency, talent, and the ability to showcase the strength of the human spirit.

The International Orchestra of Refugees gives these people who are displaced the opportunity to prosper, not just survive, through a digital database that connects displaced musicians with opportunities across the globe. The Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion would be used toward developing the infrastructure for our novel virtual orchestra through our domain at www.IORefugees.org. For the success of this mission, we seek the proper engineers, media content creators, and UX designers to ensure the optimal development for the front and back end of IOR’s database in a way that highlights refugee musicians humanely and with compassion.

While it serves as a precursor to a full-sized, physical orchestra, IOR’s virtual orchestral -- also defined as a digital database of displaced musicians -- takes an operation once limited to only approximately 100 participants (the size of a conventional orchestra), and opens it up to the global community with the capacity of showing inclusivity toward a countless number of refugee musicians. By way of this digital database, we connect refugee musicians with one another, allowing for the formation of satellite ensembles groups in cities across the globe. In doing so, we can develop a sustainable means for refugee communities to prosper.

With the proper resources, the International Orchestra of Refugees can empower displaced musicians to become musical ambassadors of peace, through orchestral opportunities and collaborative community.