Enrique Luna is a talented jazz musician from Mexico, who was already socially engaged there before his time as an SBW Berlin scholarship recipient with the La Luna Ensamble, but also as an independent jazz musician and composer. After a series of concerts in 2018, Enrique noticed the positive impact music has on vulnerable and marginalized groups in particular. He began to become more and more socially involved in “Social Attention and Integration Centers” in Mexico City.

Enrique says of himself that his career as a musician is characterized on the one hand by the creation of new pieces of music and on the other by artistic projects themselves. In his work, he repeatedly emphasizes the value of music and art in general and combines both with a social aspect. For Enrique, “[hat] music has the ability to sensitize and raise awareness of various social and environmental issues.”

Enrique Luna continued this commitment with his social project “Música y Movimento”, which he developed as part of the SBW Berlin scholarship program. In collaboration with Diakoniewerk Simeon and Give Something Back To Berlin, he designed various interactive workshops for different groups, in which the participants used music and various creative exercises to develop their own creativity and train their physical coordination. Of course, the focus was also on having fun and trying things out, which had a positive effect on the mental mood of the participants. According to Enrique, “Música y Movimento” was intended and is intended to create “spaces of empathy and sensitization through the recognition of emotions between people of all ages and from different cultural backgrounds.”

This can also be seen in his extremely innovative final project at the Jazz Institute of the UdK, in which he combines various disciplines (music performance, visual art, dance and meditation) and shows how music can evoke different emotions and reactions in the listener. Accordingly, Enrique completed his Master’s degree very successfully.

Enrique believes that all his projects are connected. He also took the opportunity to further develop and share his own compositions. With the help of “Initiative Musik”, the first album by “La Luna Ensamble” was recorded and produced in 2023. Enrique enthusiastically explains how this also led to a new innovation here, “as it [Album] uses a new format that combines art and technology in the so-called tap-tape and is an alternative to the CD or vinyl formats.” Enrique says that “in this work he has found a way to combine both his artistic and social projects.

Since his return to Mexico, he has held a series of workshops at public art schools (Escuela Superior de Música) and at “Casas de Cultura” in various regions of Mexico, including Oaxaca, Veracruz, Puebla and Michoacán. He also told us that he is continuing to work on new music with the help of various grants to continue and develop his social project. In the longer term, Enrique would also like to help other young musicians with their artistic development and encourage them to combine their work with the social sector. He is firmly convinced that “art has a positive influence on people’s lives and enhances their general well-being.”