SEYO 2024: Music, Relationships, and Organization in an Intensive Educational Experience

This report presents the findings of a qualitative research study conducted on the experience of SEYO 2024 (Sistema Europe Youth Orchestra), which took place between Pesaro and Urbino in July 2024 as part of "Pesaro Italian Capital of Culture", in collaboration with the LiberaMusica association. The study analyzes SEYO as a temporary apparatus characterized by high relational, educational, and organizational intensity, capable of rendering visible, in a concentrated form, the dynamics typical of collective music education practices oriented toward social inclusion. The research is based on a heterogeneous corpus of empirical materials—reflective diaries, questionnaires, ethnographic observations, focus groups, and informal conversations—which allow the experience to be reconstructed from multiple perspectives, intertwining individual lived experiences, collective practices, and material and organizational conditions. The findings are organized around nine analytical dimensions that highlight the intensive and immersive nature of the campus, the role of the body and fatigue, the often invisible organizational work, educational relationships, tensions related to inclusion and implicit hierarchies, dynamics of sociality and interculturality, and outcomes in terms of learning and motivation. Finally, the report proposes an overall interpretation of the experience, highlighting its structurally ambivalent character: SEYO emerges simultaneously as a powerful accelerator of relationships and learning, and as a context that reveals vulnerabilities, limitations, and asymmetries, thereby offering valuable points for reflection for educational and cultural work oriented toward inclusion.