Connection across the world – San Francisco
At the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, we believe that creative empowerment improves lives, resulting in our commitment to weaving social purpose into everything we do. As part of this mission, we have begun embedding meaningful collaborations as part of our international touring around two areas: building on our 25-year history of working with people affected by homelessness and nurturing the next generation of exceptional young musicians. During our 2025 residency at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, in which the orchestra delivered a full-scale side-by-side led by Music Director Joshua Bell, our players also brought the joy of music into homelessness centres across the city, working with students engaged on the Conservatory’s Connect programme. Fiona Bonds, ASMF’s Associate Principal Viola, took part in the collaboration and offers her reflections on the project.
I am so proud to be a part of ASMF’s groundbreaking work with people experiencing homelessness so was thrilled, back in February, to be given the exciting opportunity to take this work further afield, to San Francisco.
The project formed part of our residency with Joshua Bell at the San Francisco Conservatory, so we were not only helping the homeless, but also broadening the education of the students there. I joined forces with Rebecca Scott-Smissen, violin, to form half of a pre-formed string quartet of students. Will Schofield, cello, and Antonia Kesel, violin completed the other half of the student quartet, making two pantomime horse-style groups! We were to prepare a presentation with them to be given at a homeless centre the following day. It was so interesting meeting up with the students to rehearse and discuss how we were going to run the session. For us, it was a great exercise in how to offer advice, whilst letting them take the lead, because we wanted to help them gain confidence to continue their work with the homeless after we had gone.
The morning of our hostel visit started with fever pitched excitement (on the ASMF musicians’ part) as we made our way there in a driverless car! We co-presented a short programme with the two students, introducing pieces and inviting comments and questions from the audience. We stayed around afterwards and as is often the case, heard some fascinating and thought-provoking stories and saw how music really connects with people in so many different places in their lives.
Walking around the city during our weeklong stay in San Francisco we witnessed some truly sobering scenes. Drug dependency seems to be more visibly prevalent there compared to London and some people were really suffering. If we can have helped in some small way, in the way we best can, it makes me even more convinced of the necessity of taking our work with the homeless around the world as we tour.
ASMF continues to build partnerships around the world to empower more communities through the positive impacts of music. In October 2025, ASMF’s Chamber Ensemble will partner with MusicKitchenNYC to perform for an audience of individuals experiencing homelessness during the orchestra’s US tour. To find out more, visit asmf.org/social-purpose/