Mexico City, February 10, 2025— Our 20th anniversary year is off to a great start!

Major donors

We are excited and deeply grateful that two major donors share our commitment to forging connections across cultural and national barriers through the medium of music. Thank you to the Michael and Mary Ann Wells Charitable Trust and to the Balgley Family Charitable Foundation! They will both be acknowledged as the sponsors of our work around the world this year. If you would like to join them, please make a tax-deductible contribution today to Cultures in Harmony.

Mexico

The Mexico project is complete! From January 31 to February 3, we sent David Perez Olmedo (conductor of the orchestra of Chihuahua University) and our founder to the Sierra Tarahumara mountains of northern Mexico. Hosted by Romayne Wheeler, the pianist of the Sierra Tarahumara, they donated 2 violins and 2 guitars (generously contributed by Educación Musical de Puebla) to indigenous Rarámuri musicians in Retosachi and Huisuchi. Thank you to Jorge Ordoñez and Gaby Terrazas for hosting a benefit concert in Chihuahua that covered their travel to the Sierra. Please follow us on Instagram for more pictures from the Mexico project!

Afghanistan

We have spent our budget for Afghanistan already, sending much-needed support to four Afghan musicians, whose livelihood was cut off when the Taliban came back 3 years ago and made music illegal again. Many of these musicians are still trying to get to somewhere safe for them, and these small grants we give help them do just that.  Faisal writes: “I’m grateful and appreciate Cultures in Harmony’s support and help. And I used the support for my visa process and to get to my musical team in Iran and I’ll try my best to encourage the youth for music and cultural exchanges.” Erfan writes: “The money I received from Cultures in Harmony was spent for Pakistan visa processing, which I required to be able to travel to Pakistan for our USA DV lottery case checkup. As always, Cultures in Harmony has paved the way for us to solve one or more of our financial issues.”

Updates on our 20th Anniversary Projects

Our work in South America will be in Colombia, where CiH will help underwrite the participation of our founder when he teaches young musicians in August at Festivando Bogotá. The project in Congo has been postponed since security concerns around the city of Goma complicate the logistics. Those resources will be redirected towards our project in Zimbabwe.