Andre de Quadros: “Music is part of what it means to be a human being”

by Solveig Lindroos, Gy 1

Andre de Quadros is a conductor who lives in the United States and has worked all over the world; for two years, he has been doing a music festival in Sweden called “Musik och Medmänsklighet”. The projects he’s most known for are his work in prisons, where he gives prisoners a purpose through music, and the choir festival in Jerusalem where he forms a choir with Palestinians and Israelis who sing together. Aside from his musical career, he is also a writer and human rights activist.  I got to interview De Quadros by phone in connection with the Swedish music festival.

Lindroos: Can you tell me a bit about your childhood, upbringing and life?

De Quadros: I was born I India and I grew up in the big city Bombay. My father was a doctor and my mother was a teacher and I had two sisters; one older and one younger.

I went to school in India and when I was 21 I did my first university degree in economics and mathematics. When I was 22 I moved two Australia, and after 26 years, in 2001, I moved to the USA where I live now.  Today I have two children and one grandson.

Lindroos: Did you always want to become a musician? You said you got a degree in economics and mathematics, so what made you want to work with music?

De Quadros: Actually, it was an accident. I had been playing and studying the violin since I was four or five years old., but I never had an interest in being professionally involved in music. It was just a hobby.

Then one time, when I was going to university, something very interesting happened. I was in a choir rehearsal, because my friend was the pianist for the choir and asked me to come turn his pages. The choir got a message from the conductor saying that he wasn´t going to conduct them anymore. They asked everybody in the choir and the pianist if anybody could conduct, but no one could, so they asked me. I had never conducted before and couldn´t even read a score with many lines, but they said it was fine, that I just needed to move my hands, they knew what to sing.

That´s how I started conducting. I became very interested in it and started studying it, it changed my life. Interesting story, right?

Lindroos: Yes, very! What made you want to work with music in the way that you do, helping people and bringing them together, like your work in the prisons and Jerusalem?

De Quadros: I love going to concerts, and they are very important to me. But I thought about all the people who can´t go to concerts, because they are for example in prison or hospitalized. What about those millions and millions of people who don´t get a chance to have music in their lives? It´s not fair for us to only give music to one part of the population. I wanted to give everyone an opportunity to everyone to have music, no matter their age, race, religion etc.

I also started thinking about using music as a tool to bring people together, especially people who are in gangs or separated politically or religiously, like the Israelis and Palestinians.  Also, just bringing together people who normally wouldn´t meet each other.  Music does so many things, it can have so many purposes, so many aims and goals.

Lindroos: we mentioned your work in the prison, but how do you feel about people who actually did things like commit murder or sexual assault?

De Quadros: That is a very good question. First of all, I think essentially, prisons should be a place where people can recover from society. Every prisoner has some kind of a relationship with someone on the outside, and very often they are going to come out of the prison and be living as normal citizen. Somebody who committed murder might come out and live as your neighbor or be on the bus with you.

I´m not saying we shouldn´t have prisons, because as you say, they have committed a crime and should be given time to reinvent themselves.  In my view, people should come out of the prison better than they were when they went into it, that should be the goal. The problem now is that a lot of people come out and commit more crimes.

Lindroos: You want to give everyone the opportunity to have music; why do you think that is so important?

De Quadros: the main reason is that music is part of what it means to be a human being, our brains are genetically constructed to make music. We have been making music for 60, 000 years.

It´s important to understand that everyone can make music. Pretty often, if people haven´t gotten a chance to cultivate their musical abilities, for example they might not sing in tune, but that doesn´t mean they won´t ever be able to.

Lindroos: Why are there so many people like this, who haven´t developed their musical abilities?

De Quadros: In the old days, people went to church and sang every week, so they learned music that way. Now less and less people go to church, which makes a very big difference; they are making less music. Sometimes I meet people who are in their forties or fifties who have hardly been singing at all, music isn’t a part of their lives, and I think that is a pretty big deal.

Lindroos: I read an article where you say that it´s more important to make music, or art in general, than to consume it. Why do you think that?

De Quadros: that is also an interesting question.  When I go to the gym or when I am on the bus, everyone has got earphones on, everyone is listening to music all the time. I don´t think consuming music is bad at all, but only consuming it and not making it is a situation that´s out of balance, because, as I said, making music is part of what it means to be a human being.

If we take something else that is part of being a human, for example telling stories, we learn that when we go to school. That is why we go to school; to expand the skills that are part of being human. But we don´t learn music in school the same way.

Lindroos: The situation in the world right now is a bit chaotic; there is a lot of wars, conflicts and corrupt leaders. How do you look at this situation?

 De Quadros: I think corruption is everywhere. You may think Sweden isn´t corrupt, but corruption is everywhere. There is no perfect society, no society without corruption or greedy people. But society in Sweden is more based on equality and has access to central aspects of people’s lives such as health care, education and welfare. We don´t have that in the United States. There the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The people in the middle are also getting poorer.

I must say that I don´t admire most of the politicians in the world. They don´t set a role model for peace, equality and nonviolence. People to admire are people like Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King. They showed us how you can fight for equality in a peaceful way.

Equality is always to be fought for, it is not going to be given to us. Women have the opportunity to vote because they fought for it, not because someone gave it to them, it´s the same with equality for black people. I believe the fight has to be non-violent and peaceful, but we have to fight, we have to raise our voices.

Lindroos: You travel a lot with your work; what differences have you noticed between different countries and people with different backgrounds, religions, ethnicities, experiences etc.

De Quadros: Every society has certain characteristics I suppose, every society has its own traditions, and even parts of societies are different. For example, in Sweden there is a strong sense of democracy, and people are concerned about things like women´s rights. Take a country like Saudi Arabia, there they are just now giving women permission to drive.  The differences are enormous in different parts of the world, that´s an important thing to be aware of.

Lindroos: How do you balance your personal life with your work?

De Quadros: Fortunately, now my children are grown up, I even have a grandson, so they don´t depend on me in the same way they did when they were younger. I am still very involved with them but it´s quite different.  When my children were young I spent a lot more time on personal life, now I spend a lot less time on personal life, but that´s, for me it´s fine.

Lindroos: My last question for you is: If you could describe your work with one word, what would it be?

De Quadros: I like the word we use with the festival “musik och medmänsklighet”, medmänsklighet – humanity. I think that would probably be the one word.

Lindroos: Is there anything else you´d like to say?

De Quadros: well I wanted to say that I am very very impressed with you! I have often been interviewed by professional journalists, and they haven´t asked such intelligent questions that you have asked, that is really amazing. You think in a way that young people don´t normally do.

Lindroos: Thank you so much!