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San Diego, Tijuana Youth symphonies unite for historic cross-border performance
This weekend, 85 musicians from San Diego’s Youth Symphony and neighboring Sinfónica Juvenil de Tijuana packed the Epstein Family Amphitheater at the University of California, San Diego, for a historic performance.
“No matter where you’re from, music can be something that unites,” said Lilian Franqui one of the musicians breaking down barriers.
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When she was 7 years old, Franqui picked up a violin at an instrument “petting zoo.”
Now, more than a decade later, she’s planning to make a career in it.
“When you’re playing, there’s no talk about borders. There’s no talk about ‘them versus us’ that I see a lot of, especially in the news,” Franqui said. “I think that this music really allows us to be, you know, closer together.”
The performance was part of an effort to bridge communities through creativity and innovation during this year’s “World Design Capital” designation.
“You may not understand each other. Speak the same language, but you know, the same notes you can play the same,” Sophia Getman, a Sinfónica Juvenil de Tijuana member, said.
But it’s not always in tune – or easy.
Suvro Banerji/CBS News
Some performers from Tijuana waited at least three hours to cross the border to rehearsal.
“It’s been a learning lesson for many of the students in the San Diego Youth Symphony certainly, because, for a lot of them, you can easily take for granted driving to rehearsal, coming to rehearsal, and making music, and maybe it’s a 20-minute car ride or a 30-minute car ride, but for some of the musicians that have joined us, it can, it can be an all-day ordeal,” said Sameer Patel, conductor and artistic director of the San Diego Youth Symphony.
This unique collaboration has culminated in a special composition called “Ilimitados”, meaning limitless.
“Limitless is symbolic of hope, of opportunities,” Anthony Kim, concertmaster for the San Diego Youth Symphony. “In regard to the border region, I hope this helps instigate peace and unity.”
Suvro Banerji/CBS News
Patel hopes it hits the right notes and resonates far beyond this stage.
“Music is about the greatest expression of our common humanity, and I think when we have a piece of music like this and opportunities to come together that showcases our common humanity, that you know, you can see that that there’s little that actually separates us,” Patel said.
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The Pentagon freed two prisoners Wednesday from Guantánamo Bay, marking the second and third releases this week from the notorious wartime detention camp.
Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep were repatriated to Malaysia, where both are nationals, according to the United States Department of Defense. The men had been held by the U.S. since 2003 and imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay since 2006, for their ties to al Qaeda and an Indonesian extremist group called Jemaah Islamiyah.
The repatriation of Amin and Lep came as part of a plea deal and an agreement with the government of Malaysia, Defense officials said. Each pleaded guilty before a U.S. military commission to various war crimes, including murder, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, conspiracy and destruction of property. They also provided deposition testimony that can be used against a different prisoner, Encep Nurjaman, who is believed to be the “mastermind” responsible for al Qaeda attacks in Bali and Jakarta between 2002 and 2003.
Their conditions for release from Guantánamo Bay call for an additional five-year period of confinement for each prisoner, to be served either in the country where they are repatriated or a third-party sovereign nation.
Amin and Lep’s releases were announced one day after the Pentagon said another prisoner, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, was freed from incarceration at Guantánamo Bay and repatriated to Kenya. Detained by the U.S. for 18 years without criminal charges, Bajabu was the first prisoner freed from the camp in roughly a year. U.S. defense officials said a review board determined in December 2021 that detaining Bajabu “was no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the national security of the United States.” The board recommended with that determination that Bajabu be transferred out of Guantánamo Bay.
“The United States appreciates the support to ongoing U.S. efforts toward a deliberate and thorough process focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the Defense Department said in statements on the releases of all three prisoners.
The latest repatriation efforts leave 27 prisoners still detained at Guantánamo Bay. Of them, 15 are eligible for transfer, three are eligible for evaluation by the review board, and seven are being tried through the military commissions process. Only the final two prisoners have been convicted and sentenced by military commissions, according to the Pentagon.
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