VISION Collective

The VISION Collective was founded in 2018 by Executive Director and cellist Drake Driscoll, Program Coordinator and violist Sarah Sung, and violinist Timothy Chooi. Our mission is to build meaningful relationships with and among refugees and new Americans by sharing and exchanging music between diverse communities. As a collective, we strive to make refugees and immigrants feel recognized, valued, and celebrated as individuals beyond the identity of their circumstance. Through collaborative music making, we bring individuals from all walks of life together to create diverse and meaningful art. 

At the local level, VISION performs at Building One Community and YMCA New Americans Initiative (Flushing Location). Each collaboration with these organizations includes two visits. The first is focused on learning about the participants’ life stories and how music is meaningful to them. With this information, we make arrangements of the requests and put on a performance that brings these stories to life through a program of culturally diverse works. In addition to our concerts, we create feature videos that highlight migrant stories and bring them to life through music. Each video focuses on one immigrant, their story, and the music that VISION arranged for them. These videos are shared on VISION’s YouTube channel and social media pages. In 2019, VISION released two feature videos online and performed with them live in concert at The Juilliard School on May 2nd, 2019. 

Xiao Tao Liu Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-Jy2EL27A&t=77s
Soraya Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxObr1PaCoM&t=18s

In the summer of 2019, VISION took their work overseas for the first time, in collaboration with Concerts for Compassion, performing one interactive concert at each of three refugee camps in central Germany, interacting with approximately 120 children and adults from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, and Turkey. In 2021, pending COVID-19, VISION will return to Germany for two weeks of rhythm and singing workshops at two refugee camps. We will also travel to Athens for the first time, bringing another set of workshops to refugee communities in partnership with El Sistema Greece and the International Organization for Migration.

Over the past two years, The VISION Collective has grown enormously. Each member has a passion for community work and is an advocate for social change through music. Current musicians include violinists Mark Chien, Timothy Chooi, Sophia Steger, and Lucas Stratmann; violist Sarah Sung; cellists Drake Driscoll and Esther Seitz; and pianist Sophiko Simsive. Current composers include Hunter Hanson, Tengku Irfan, Nick Marsella, J.P. Redmond, Iván Enrique Rodríguez, Lauren Vandervelden, Horacio Fernández Vázquez and Aaron Wolff.

In recognition of their work, The VISION Collective has received the George J. Jakab Global Enrichment Grant, the Juilliard Entrepreneurship Grant, and the Norman Benzaquen Career Advancement Grant.

Our goal for the future of VISION is to establish sustainable music programs in refugee camps around the world. We plan to continue our international workshops over the next few years, eventually taking on a more permanent role in camps.

For more information, visit www.1visioncollective.org

Our work is made possible by your support, and we are incredibly grateful for your generosity! If you would like to give directly, please email us at [email redacted].

Lots of love... music can change the world! <3
VISION