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Translation: He who has an instrument in his hands in the afternoon won’t pick up a weapon at night.

Carlos Garicia Ruiz, music director of the Jaurez Symphony

I spent some time in El Paso a decade ago and had a chance to tour Jaurez with a local musician and hear about the nascent classical music scene there. It really is remarkable that as the city’s security and civility have crumbled its orchestra has, in the words of its director, ‘started making more concerts … in the same time that things are really going bad, we can have a good artistic health.’