VENEZUELA: El Sistema takes poor kids from the slums of Venezuela and trains them as classical musicians. Venezuela's pioneering classical music programme for children has produced world-class artists such as the young conductor Gustavo Dudamel. It has also quietly transformed the social fabric of the country.
Felix Briseno was brought up with his six siblings in a small apartment in Guarenas, a run-down town on the outskirts of Caracas. His father is a security guard and his mother is a housewife. As a child, he says, he found it impossible to imagine the world outside the scrubby grass forecourt where he was allowed out to play. "There are lots of people here who won't even travel the 45-minute drive to Caracas. The horizons are very limited."
While his schoolfriends and siblings scratch a living in local factories, Felix, who is now 22, has made a remarkable transition. He is a classically trained conductor, working with two youth orchestras in Guarenas. Last summer he became the first member of his family to apply for a passport when he travelled to England to attend a music summer school. His dream is to follow in the footsteps of his hero Gustavo Dudamel, the 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor who is one of the world's fastest-rising talents in classical music. "Music has not just opened doors for me professionally," says Felix, "it has opened my mind to a whole world of possibilities."
In the 30 years since its foundation, El Sistema has evolved into one of the most successful community arts programmes in the world. There are 250,000 children studying music under its auspices across Venezuela, from the most remote rural villages to the poorest barrios of Caracas. Its founder, the composer/statesman José Antonio Abreu (according to legend, he started with 11 children rehearsing in a garage), has said that it heralds a "new era in which great art is created by the majority, for the majority". In a politically turbulent country, it has provided a rare point of consensus, attracting support from a succession of governments including, most recently, that of the socialist president Hugo Chavez, who has financed a state-of-the-art concert hall and rehearsal space in Caracas.
I have always believed in creativity and art as the way to help save the world. Here is a country saving their easily lost youth (Could we save ours?) through music that "takes them to a different world" in more ways than one. This is a movement we could learn much from instead of attacking Chavez and the Venezuelan regime why not learn from what they are doing right! They have so much participation that they are making their own instruments. And honestly, I am sick of watching the crappy music clips broadcasting on Rotana... Haifa Wehbe, Nancy Ajram, Ruby, etc. do not represent us and certainly are not what I would like future generations to be hearing 24hrs a day...
Here are some inspiring facts: 800,000 children have been through the program, $80 million dollars from 8 Venezuelan governments has been spent towards helping these kids. Their National Youth Orchestra (they have hundreds of others) travels world wide.
Check out this You Tube on Gustavo Dudamel (one of the program's super stars) and the Simon Bolivar youth orchestra.
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