El Sistema is a publicly financed voluntary sector music education program in Venezuela, originally called Social Action for Music. Its official name is Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, (Fesnojiv), and sometimes translated to English as "National Network of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela"). El Sistema is a state foundation which watches over Venezuela's 125 youth orchestras and the instrumental training programmes which make them possible.
Logo of FESNOJIV |
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| Type | Cultural |
|---|---|
| Industry | Promotion of Music in the Venezuelan Youth |
| Founded | 1975 |
| Headquarters | Caracas, Venezuela |
| Products | Youth and Children Orchestras |
| Revenue | non-profit |
| Employees | non-profit |
| Website | FESNOJIV official site |
El Sistema has 31 symphony orchestras. But its greatest achievement are the 250,000 children who attend its music schools around the country, 90 percent of them from poor socio-economic backgrounds.[1]
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In 1975, Venezuelan economist and musician José Antonio Abreu founded Social Action for Music and became its director. Abreu has navigated the program for the past 35 years through ten different administrations, flourishing under both the presidents of the 1980s and the leftist administration of Hugo Chávez. Combining political shrewdness with religious devotion, Abreu has dedicated himself to a utopian dream in which an orchestra represents the ideal society, and the sooner a child is nurtured in that environment, the better for all.[2]
The Venezuelan government began fully financing Abreu's orchestra after it succeeded brilliantly at an international competition in 1977 in Aberdeen, Scotland. From the beginning, El Sistema fell under the dominion of social-services ministries, not the ministry of culture, which has strategically helped it to survive. The current Chavez administration has been the most generous patron of El Sistema so far, footing almost its entire annual operating budget as well as additional capital projects.[3] Abreu received the National Music Prize for his work in 1979. Abreu was appointed as Special Ambassador for the development of a Global Network of Youth and Children orchestras and choirs by UNESCO in 1995, also as special representative for the development of network of orchestras within the framework of UNESCO's "World Movement of Youth and Children Orchestras and Choirs".[2][3]
Its network of 102 youth and 55 children's orchestras (numbering approximately 100,000 youngsters) later came under the supervision of the Ministry of Family, Health and Sports. As El Sistema, its goal is to use music for the protection of childhood through training, rehabilitation and prevention of criminal behaviour.[4][5]
The program is known for rescuing young people in extremely impoverished circumstances from the environment of drug abuse and crime into which they would likely otherwise be drawn. [4] Participants of the program who have begun international careers include Gustavo Dudamel,[6] Edicson Ruiz[7][5], Joen Vazquez, Pedro Eustache, L. Miguel Rojas, Edward Pulgar, Natalia Luis-Bassa, Frank Di Polo among others.
In September 2007, President Hugo Chávez announced on television a new government program, Misión Música, designed to provide tuition and music instruments to Venezuelan children, with Abreu present on the TV program.[8]
A documentary film has been produced on the subject of El Sistema, entitled Tocar y Luchar ("Play and Fight", 2004).[6] The film has won several awards, including "best documentary" at the Cine Las Americas International Film Festival and also the Albuquerque Latino Film Festival. In 2008 another documentary made by Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier about the system will appear. [7] El Sistema has also been featured on news programs such as 60 Minutes.[8]
An important product of El Sistema is the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar). In 2007 the orchestra made its debut at Carnegie Hall and at the BBC Proms début under the baton of Dudamel, receiving enthusiastic reviews.[9][10] With top qualified musicians El Sistema has recently created a new Youth Orchestra named after Teresa Carreño that will start International touring this fall.
On 6 June 2007, the Inter-American Development Bank announced the granting of a US$150 million loan for the construction of seven regional centers of El Sistema throughout Venezuela. Many bankers within the IDB originally objected to the loan on the grounds that classical music is for the elite. In fact, the bank has conducted studies on the more than two million young people who have been educated in El Sistema which link participation in the program to improvements in school attendance and declines in juvenile delinquency. Weighing such benefits as a falloff in school drop-out rates and a decline in crime, the bank calculated that every dollar invested in El Sistema was reaping about $1.68 in social dividends.[9] Supported by the government, El Sistema has started to introduce its music program into the public-school curriculum, aiming to be in every school and to support 500,000 children by 2015.[11]
The project has been extended to the penal system. On 25 May 2008, Leidys Asuaje wrote for Venezuelan daily El Nacional: "The plan to humanize jails through music began eleven months ago under the tutelage of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice and FESNOJIV...."[12]
Drew McManus wrote a four-part series about El Sistema: The Future of Classical Music is in Venezuela.[13][14][15][16]
John Williams was quoted in the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional on 5 November 2007: "This is something unique that has to be seen by the whole world.... [and] which we urgently need here [in the USA]."[17]
A public symposium on El Sistema took place on 7 November 2007 in Boston, Massachusetts, and is available as a webcast. WGBH Forum Network
The panel of speakers included:
On 22 November 2007, Julian Lloyd Webber said this about the UK government's announcement of an infusion of £332 million just for music-education:
"We also have an impoverished South American nation to thank. Last August, in the midst of school holidays, when an uncomfortable number of British children seemed even more disaffected than usual, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra arrived from Venezuela to deliver performances at the Edinburgh Festival and the London Proms that were, quite simply, miraculous" [18]. Lloyd Webber was appointed chairman of the steering group of In Harmony, a British government-led music education and community development project which is based on by El Sistema [19].
Sistema Scotland was established in Scotland with a grant from the Scottish Arts Council, as a result of an initiative by its chairman Richard Holloway, for the purpose of breaking the cycle of poverty in the economically depressed area of Raploch, in Stirling, where male life expectancy is less than 63 years.[10][11]
In England "the Department for Education has put aside £2m to a three-year scheme [called In Harmony (music)] which will focus on three impoverished areas...”[20] According to Peter Stevenson of Sistema Scotland, the £2m mentioned here is part of the £332 million that the Glennie-Galway-Lloyd Webber-Kamen music education consortium helped generate.
Tavis Smiley aired a series on music education in the United States, called "Dudamel: Conducting a Life." [21] The report includes a spotlight on Conservatory Lab Charter School [22], the first El Sistema-infused charter school in Massachusetts. Conservatory Lab elementary school students receive free orchestral instruction for three hours each day, integrated into their academic program.
Alexander Bernstein said: “This is something we need in the United States.” Source, El Universal, Caracas, Venezuela, 12 January 2008.
This is from the WorldTeach website:
The director of the Damascus Opera 2011 production of Oliver! cited El Sistema as the inspiration for casting 25 actual orphans in the Syrian version of the musical.[12]
On 14 February 2008, El Sistema founder José Antonio Abreu was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize. [24]. Brian Levine, Managing Director, Glenn Gould Foundation, wrote an account of his recent (2008) visit to Caracas; in part he wrote: "El Sistema has demonstrated conclusively that music education is the gateway to lifelong learning and a better future."[25]
On 21 May 2008, El Sistema was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.[26]
On 13 June 2008, El Sistema founder Maestro Abreu was a guest speaker at the National Performing Arts Convention-2008 in Denver, Colorado. [27]
On 5 February 2009, José Antonio Abreu won the TED prize for his work on El Sistema, and was granted a TED wish. [28]
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