In the name of cultural preservation

Twenty-three kilos. That was the weight of my suitcase when I checked in for my flight to study abroad in the United States, leaving my family and friends in my home country, Venezuela. I have been living in the U.S. for over five years, and it has been a journey with ups and downs, like everything in life. Immigration inevitably severs the physical connection to the roots of your culture. It leaves you with a feeling akin to "ghost limb” syndrome; a dull ache for a part of you that is no longer there. As an immigrant, you fear that the process of adaptation and assimilation will slowly weaken the bonds to that culture which were once strong and unwavering. Instinctively you want to preserve your cultural heritage and carry it with you. Music is a wonderful vehicle through which heritage is preserved; however, unlike the visual arts, it is intangible. You can hear music, but you cannot grab it. You can feel it and see its impact on community, but you cannot touch it. Thus, the loss of visual art is more palpable than that of music. One only needs to watch the news to see and feel the devastating loss of historic buildings and museums. When Notre Dame caught on fire in 2019, the world mourned at the visceral images of centuries of art and culturebeing destroyed in an instant. More recently, the Chernihiv Regional History Museum in Ukraine was destroyedduring the war with Russia. The loss of music may be harder to notice, but no less tragic. How, then, can we prevent our musical heritage from vanishing?