Equal Among Equals

The story behind the Arcana strum is a very unique one. 

Its a story of people who come from two very different worlds, that share something in common – their great love for music, and their strong belief in the human spirit. 

It all started half a decade ago, when Gil, a fifth grade student suffering from cerebral palsy, met Boaz, her music teacher. 

By then, Gil and her parents have already come a long way in their attempts to make music playing more accessible for her. 

They have tried for several years, by using various instruments and teachers – unfortunately without any success, leaving Gil devastated.  

Boaz Reinschreiber is a musician who has been active in the music scene for many years. He has focused on combining music in various teaching institutions, and during that time, has also began to operate in the framework of audiences with special needs. 

When he arrived to her school, Gil, with great courage, took the opportunity to express her deepest desire and ambition – that is, to be able to take part in activities with her classmates as an equal, and to be able to play music, just like others could. 

With this in mind, Boaz began to search for ways to make Gil’s dream come true. He began by encouraging her to play and experiment with various instruments. However, as time went by, he realised that the standard instrument was not a good fit, since it did not allow her, or other people with special needs to really experience music playing and music creation. 

Although this caused a lot of frustration, he did not give up, and was determined to find a solution. His devotion to the cause is the beginning of the amazing and long journey that lead to the creation of the Arcana strum.  

During the following years, a team began to form – An extraordinary group of people who got involved in the process and created the musical instrument from scratch. 

The founders; Boaz Reinshreiber, Oren Alsheich, Haim Kahiry and Jonathan Bar-Or worked tirelessly around the clock to achieve their goal – to allow Gil and the special needs population to play music just like anyone else. 

With great capabilities and experience in various fields including technology, music and production, product design and such, the team worked on forming their first prototype version in 2016. During this process, various aspects of special needs were examined in order to ensure that the final product could address as many people as possible – those with motor difficulties, as well as cognitive and mental difficulties. 

After a long preparation. With Gil, she performed with her school’s friends and it felt like a dream come true. The prototype that shown in this video is the first one to built and was hand made for Gil. the show was in the “Symphony” Concert hall at Rosh Haain City ,which hosted  gill and her friends to preform .

At the end of the show gill parents were interviewed and talked about their daughters desire for music and her passion to play for the very first time on the first prototype that developed by arcana team.

Gill parents emphasize how  dedicate she is to fulfill her dream, playing an hour per day and train as much as she can , now she has the  ability to play with everyone!