Board Member
Ron Davis Álvarez is a Venezuelan conductor and music educator. He has led masterclasses and lectures around the world, training teachers and developing orchestral programs for children and youth.
He is the founder and artistic director of Dream Orchestra, a music learning community based in Gothenburg, Sweden, with more than 400 members, mainly young migrants and refugees from over 25 countries, such as Afghanistan, Syria, Ukraine, Iran, Palestine, Venezuela, Somalia, Eritrea, and Iraq.
In 2011, he founded a children’s orchestra at the Uummannaq Children’s Home in northern Greenland, 700 kilometers above the Arctic Circle. He has worked in refugee camps across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
For six years, Álvarez was the Artistic Director of El Sistema Sweden. He is currently the Artistic Director of Side by Side, the world’s largest international youth music camp, organized by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra.
He co-authored the book Dream Orchestra: A Learning Model (2020), which presents the pedagogical foundations of his work in inclusive music education.
Álvarez was awarded the Pedagogy Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 2020, selected among the Top 50 Global Teachers by the Varkey Foundation in 2017, and honored with the Frihetstonen Award and the Ockenden International Prize for his contributions to refugee education. In 2024, he was named 5 top CNN Heroes of the year.
He has spoken at global forums such as the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, the Nobel Prize Conference on Migration, and the 2025 UNESCO Conference on Culture and Sustainable Development in Iceland.
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Information valid as of autumn 2025.