CHECKIN' OUT SOME VETERAN PROGRAMS

El Sistema Venezuela is garnering a lot of attention these days, in part due to its most famous graduate, Gustavo Dudamel, being the hottest young conductor in the world right now. The spotlight on El Sistema Venezuela can also be attributed to the sheer magnitude of the program: more than 2.5 million youths have gone through the program and it currently serves more than than 300,000 kids. But one thing that is less often mentioned is that El Sistema has been around 35 years and it didn't always look the way it does today. Indeed, when the founder of El Sistema, Jose Antonio Abreu, conducted the first rehearsal in 1975 there were only 11 kids, in a garage!

Here in North America programs meant to enrich youths' lives have been around for even longer. Of course not all of them have been music programs, but there are some. The past two weeks saw us tour six such sites in Boston: The Boston Arts Academy, Youth and Family Enrichment Services, The Boston City Singers, The Conservatory Lab Charter School, The YMCA and the Boston Children's Chorus. Some aspects of these programs resemble some El Sistema Venezuela aspects and others less so. While visiting these sites and working with their students, I tried to keep in mind how important it will be (when I'm working next year) to combine the best aspects of not only El Sistema Venezuela, but also the best aspects of these North American community programs that have been around for many years. Doing this, I believe, will be key in taking a system that works in one part of the globe and adapting it in a different culture and part of the globe.

The Boston Arts Academy, located just across the street from Fenway Park, is a public high school charged with the mission of being a beacon for artistic and academic innovation. It reminded me of my high school "Ecole Secondaire De La Salle" in Ottawa because of all the arts programs it has: music, dance, theatre and visual arts. I chose the video below because it shows peer-to-peer mentorship happening within the classroom.


In El Sistema programs there is more of an emphasis on group lessons than on private lessons so the students have to help each other in order to advance. There is a sense of playing and striving together that enhances the social aspect of being in the orchestra.







Youth and Family Enrichment Services Inc. (YOFES) is a non-profit organization with the intention of "attacking the root causes of poverty, health and social disparities". The music wing of the organization is called Open Access to Music Education for Children (OAMEC). YOFES serves mostly the Haitian community in greater Boston but is open to anybody. I asked Geralde Gabeau their Director how she balances teaching Haitian students their own music as well as classical music.

She responded that doing both was key to getting the families and community involved. They use the Suzuki string method, a classical method, but they always play other kinds of music as well: church music, Christmas music and especially Haitian folk music. They often have the audience sing along to the Haitian music, which the parents and families love.

Above: the fellows, with our YOFES host, Geralde Gabeau, in the centre.

In this video below, the kids are playing a popular Haitian song called "Haiti Cherie".






An orchestra is simply one large instrument and is therefore capable of playing any kind of music. In El Sistema Venezuela, the repetoire they play includes Mozart, Beethoven and Mahler, but they also play lots of world music including plenty of Latin music. An El Sistema program will always have diversity in its members so there should also be diversity and flexibility in its repertoire and presentation. The community must feel the orchestra belongs to them and vice-versa.