David Handel was an unlikely individual to popularize orchestral music in Bolivia – American-born, classically trained, and possessed of almost no knowledge of the country he arrived in back in 1997. “The National Symphony Orchestra he was hired to remake was a shambles — it had no concert hall, generated little public interest and was barely able to muster seven or eight sparsely attended concerts a year and pay its musicians a few dollars per performance.” Today, it’s a whole different story.