Caracas #3

Montalban

Our second nucleo visit was a showcase of one fabulous performance after another, which left us all flabbergasted! A programme was carefully choreographed and organised so that we were able to see a variety of ensembles perform: a choir of French horns, three beginner French Horn players, a children's choir, a kindergarten xylophone class, beginner strings, a traditional Venezuelan ensemble, the children's and youth orchestras, big band, percussion ensemble and a chamber orchestra. Here were my immediate thoughts:

• The children were so at ease with performing to us and had been well prepared. Those who were in the same hall as other ensembles would sing or bop along to other performances. They obviously enjoyed watching each other perform and know the repertoire well.
• Exuberant playing and the confidence of the performer seems to be more important than the accuracy of the notes; we heard the beginner strings group play Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker so fiercely that I could see small clouds of rosin coming off the bow. This reminded me of seeing the hairs coming off the bow of several cello players whilst playing Shostakovich at the Guarenas nucleo.
• Youth leadership was again seen, but not to the same extent as at Guarenas. The six or seven year old French horn players were directed by a teenager in their performance of 'Ode to Joy' and the teachers of the traditional folk ensemble must have been in their late teens or early twenties.
• Members of the children's choir had recently sung in Mahler's Eighth Symphony in the Teatro Teresa Carreno under Gustavo Dudamel along with the Simon Bolivar and L.A. Phil Orchestras. Wow.
• The children's and youth orchestras were again so huge that we experienced an onslaught of high energy sound. We witnessed some great displays of technique and confidence from those who had been playing for a short time.
• The teacher who was directing the folk music ensemble performed on the maracas in a way that was truly spellbinding. I was dazzled by the variety of complex rhythms he played and began to understand how the maracas can be seen as a solo instrument capable of virtuosic playing.
• The big band and percussion ensemble simply looked as if every member was having a blast. They played some fun repertoire including Bernstein's 'Mambo', a samba version of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, and an arrangement of some TV themes. You could see them enjoying certain passages and exchanging looks and smiles, especially when they could see their audience swaying or singing along. These were great, informal performances.
   
  
  
  

Violin Festival 2013

The annual Violin Festival is a series of concerts where members of the violin academy (Academia Latinoamericana de Violin) are given the chance to perform concertos with some of the top orchestras. The Academy is headed up by Jose Francisco del Castillo, and based at the conservatory in Barquisimeto (Gustavo Dudamel also studied with Del Castillo from the age of 14). It provides the chance to have private lessons and masterclasses with exceptional teachers, and to study solo repertoire for their instrument more intensively. The students are also part of, or have been a part of the national orchestras. We attended the first half of one concert where concertos by Barber and Mendelssohn were played by a 16 year old member of the National Children’s Orchestra, and also a member of the first violins of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra.

The performances were not what I had expected from having seen many vibrant and confident performances at the Montalban and Guarenas nucleos. The soloists didn’t seem to have as much charisma, stage presence, freedom of movement and expression as their orchestral counterparts. Often when their solo melody was doubled up by the strings section, it was difficult to hear the soloist’s sound come through. It seems then, that the intense ensemble training in the orchestra that El Sistema is so famous for, might hinder the growth of the musician as a soloist, and I wonder how the academy might be addressing this.

Villa-Lobos Festival

As we toured the Centro Social, we were able to take a sneek peak at the Simon Bolivar Orchestra rehearsing for their concerts as part of the Villa-Lobos Festival. A large contingent of representatives from various Brazilian youth orchestras, and also Brazilian conductors and soloists were preparing joint performances with the Venezuelans. The festival was to finish with the Orquesta Sinfonica Binacional Brasil-Venezuela, but the concert we attended on Saturday was Brazilian repertoire conducted by Marcelo Lehninger from Brazil, and played by the Venezuelans. It was fabulous to see this exchange and strengthening of connections between the two countries through music. Of course, seeing the Simon Bolivar Orchestra live in the concert hall that was built for them definitely lived up to expectations.

And so ended the first part of our stay in Caracas. We will return at the end of our month here in Venezuela. On to Barquisimeto for a week…

Caracas #2

Centre for Social Action through Music

 We had the chance to visit the purpose-built Centre for Social Action through Music (Centro Nacional de Accion Social por la Musica) in Caracas. The building was funded partly by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Andean Development Fund, and Maestro Abreu was instrumental in its design. Every detail has been considered in light of serving the musicians who practise, rehearse, research and perform there. There are soundproof practice rooms, rehearsal rooms of varying sizes and heights for chamber groups and larger ensembles, multimedia labs for compiling digital archives and research, and two performance halls. All have outlets so that recording equipment can be plugged in, and rehearsals and performances can be directly transferred to the archive. This system is unique amongst concert halls and conservatories across the world. In addition, the acoustician for the Walt Disney Hall has been involved with the design of the main performance hall in the Centre, and also for the Barquisimeto that is being planned. The larger concert hall in Caracas was also designed by the same architect as the other major performing space in the capital, the Teatro Teresa Carreno.

Maestro Abreu carefully chose the location of the centre – transport-wise it is easy to get to with a main road going past and a metro station next door, religious centres are close nearby, the building backs out onto the Parco Central, and beyond that you can see the Teatro Teresa Carreno and the high rise block containing the offices of the FundaMusica Simon Bolivar. There is even a bandstand built in with a mechanised door, so that concerts can easily take place with the for the community. Apparently at one concert they were expecting an audience of 2,000 in the park, but ended up with 7,000!

To the east of the building, construction has already started on another wing which will mostly house a new Latin-American Teacher Training facility. A large plot of land to the west has also been acquired, and will include five more performance halls as well as more rehearsal space and practice rooms. The entire construction is planned to be finished in 2019, and Roderigo mentioned that Maestro Abreu is keen that it will be known as the 'Simon Bolivar City of Music'.

A further loan from the Inter-American Development Bank and financial support from the government will be used to continue this expansion and to also build similar centres in the other seven regions of Venezuela by 2019. The aim is for each region to have a conservatory so that students do not need to leave their community to get high quality musical opportunities, and so they can easily go back to their nucleos to teach. Roderigo emphasised how there are no existing performance spaces in communities outside of Caracas, apart from some small town amphitheatres. Eventually, there will be regional and state-wide concert halls as well as the national Centre in Caracas.

The model of the 'Simon Bolivar City of Music'

 

Caracas #1

Two days have already gone swiftly by in Venezuela. We arrived at noon on Wednesday and were greeted by a large banner of the last President Hugo Chavez with pupils of El Sistema. The journey from the airport to the city took us from the ocean and over beautiful mountain passes, then past the favelas (slums) perched on the top of steep hills and hugging the slopes, and then onto the highways of the city centre. 

Rodrigo Guerrero met us at the airport, and will be our guide and translator for most of the trip. He is the deputy director of International Relations for 'Fundacion Musical Simon Bolivar', the foundation that supports the nucleos (music centres) around the country. Although he didn't study music himself, his father was a violinist and is the legal consulant for the organisation. He was also part of an important milestone in El Sistema history, as he wrote the charter that created the Foundation through which the orchestras first received consistent government support and funding for the project.

Rodrigo has been working for FundaMusical Bolivar for 17 years, the last 7 of which have been very different as the orchestras have been gaining more and more interest abroad. Not only does he accompany the orchestras on international tours, but there are also a huge amount of international visitors, music educators, politicians, diplomats, media representatives, etc that he is responsible for hosting.

Guarenas

Our first taste of El Sistema was the nucleo of Guarenas, a large town outside of Caracas. We were able to see a small part of the activity at the nucleo where there are currently 1100 students. The building used to be a police station, so there are many rooms without windows, or the windows are barred. The hallmarks of the program were immediately evident: focus, intensity, joy, stamina, repetition, young leadership, instances of exceptional skill, and an astonishing youthful sound.

We began with a musica lengua (musical language) class where young children where learning the notes on the stave and written rhythms. Following from that, there were two strings classes taking place, the children's orchestra, the choir, and finally we experienced the youth orchestra.  

The strings classes of beginner violins gave us a snapshot of the how the program uses repetition – the children were playing the same melody, whilst focusing on one aspect of technique. In this case the teacher was looking for long bow strokes, and he was moving energetically to model the movement. There was a strength in the sound created was mirrored in the children's and the youth orchestra, and also in the choir. The vibrancy and energy found in all the music-making in the nucleo was almost overwhelming, and we were able to see how it is cultivated from a young age.

This also seems to determines the choice of repertoire with the large symphonies of Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich taking precedence over more the elegance of Mozart for example. The ensembles dynamic range seemed to vary from forte (loud) to fortissimo (very loud), and instances when the teachers were trying to achieve piano (quiet) were not always successful. But it is the confidence and youthful identity reflected in the sound that is important. I also noticed how the youth orchestra managed to make some passages of dotted rhythms of European music almost sound like a piece of Latin American traditional music.

The youth orchestra of the nucleo was a mix of students from Guarenas and the nearby town of Guatire. The kids had been playing their instruments for three years, and had been playing in this orchestra for two months. They rehearse three hours a day Monday to Saturday and are preparing a concert of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky for next week. We noticed how many of the players had memorised large parts of the symphonies, playing long passages with their eyes fixed on the conductor. The ensemble skills of the orchestra were very impressive - again there was a passion and a joy that gave me goosebumps throughout most of the performance!

In terms of exceptional talents, we saw a ten year old boy playing the cello in the front desk of the youth orchestra amidst children at least four years older than him, and also we met the clarinettist who played in the National Children's Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle in Salzburg.

The young leaders we saw teaching and directing show how the program puts their faith in youth leadership. The nucleo director, Maestro Edgar, is 30 years old and conducts the youth orchestra. He was very eloquent in talking about the social, moral and musical vision of the program, and said that his goal is to make the orchestra as good as the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela. He is a conducting pupil of Maestro Abreu and the previous director of Guarenas, who is now director of all nucleos. He supervises a new set of repertoire each month resulting in one new symphony being prepared for a concert.

Next, the Montalban nucleo...




 

 

 

 

Batuta in Colombia

Batuta (The Baton)

The Fellows and other guests were lucky to hear the Executive Director of Batuta speak at NEC  couple of weeks ago. Juan Antonio Cuellar runs this community music education project in Columbia, and spoke very eloquently in the organisation's mission of social change through music.

First of all he emphasised the fact that Batuta exists to tackle social issues in a variety of different communities and demographics. There must be an understanding of the root cause to address, and in order to do this - know your community! He mentioned that institutionalised education systems often prepare individuals to become successful in society and assume that this will lead to a strong community, whereas Batuta seeks to build communities to create a cohesive and successful society.

Secondly, he talked about why his organisation uses music to deal with these root causes of social issues. Not only is there connections and community being built as the children learn to play in musical ensembles, but also the act of being an audience member and sharing a powerful musical experience brings parents and other members of the community together, who otherwise may be at odds during their professional lives. Why classical symphonic music? Similar to the arguments of El Sistema: the beauty of the music, the opportunities to create large ensembles, to access music from a different world and context to their own, to show that the music traditionally reserved for the enjoyment of the elite can belong to Latin American children as much as their own traditions.

The repertoire used in the Batuta program is chosen for social change purposes - often they start with traditional Columbian music to get kids initially involved, choose songs with appropriate lyrics, progressing on to pieces that create a large sound and an impact audibly e.g. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The larger the scale of the piece, the more people who are involved musically in contributing to one collective sound, the greater the opportunities for community building. Maestro Cellar also answered a few questions about how the program is funded. It relies mostly on public support and even has the First Lady of Columbia and the Mayor of Bogota on the board! Indeed, it was originally initiated and funded by a previous First Lady, but after the end of the 4 year term, Batuta has not enjoyed a consistent amount of support from the government. He mentioned one example of a situation when funding intended for Batuta was going to be allocated elsewhere. To change their minds, the program put on an incredible concert, after which the community pressured the mayor into continuing to provide funds for Batuta. This is again similar to Abreu's way of convincing potential supporters and the community to stand alongside the program, by allowing the children's performance to do all the persuading.

Lastly, Maestro Cellar made a great remark about the necessity of children and teachers being at rehearsals on time: "The trumpet solo sounds terrible if it starts an eighth note before its supposed to, think about 5 minutes late!"

http://www.fundacionbatuta.org/

Preparing for Venezuela #3

So now we have a vague idea of the itinerary of our upcoming Venezuelan odyssey! We were very fortunate to have a meeting not only with Erik Holmgren, who has helped organise fellows trips to Venezuela, but also Rodrigo Guerrero - part of El Sistema management and he's done a lot of work to make our trip possible! It looks like this:
Caracas - 4 days
Barquisimeto - 1 week
Guarico - 1 week
Caracas - 9 days

Other fellows have said this and Erik reiterated today that seldom do you embark on an experience that you *know* will be hugely positive, transformative, and so inspirational that it will guide your life's work and dreams for years to come. Wow. Is it American hyperbole? Let's find out! ;)

Salon evening

We had a great evening at 18 Dalrymple - food, some excellent cider, and sharing music. It was awesome to play and sing some Venezuelan songs with our Venezuelan guests of honour, Aristides and Andrea - the song 'Alma Llanera' accompanied by the cuatro, ukulele and sign language with a White Hands Choir alumni! Aristidies also joined us for an acapella arrangement of 'Caballo Viejo'.

 

Finally, the Venezuelan National Anthem - Glory to the Brave People!

Chicago Trip

The Sistema Fellows hit our first conference in the Fellowship in Chicago last week. The National Guild for Community Arts Education conference ran for three days, with half of us being Work Study Volunteers. http://communityartsed.nationalguild.org/Home.aspx

Highlights of the conference for me were:

• Discussing evaluation models of an arts program's impact on students and communities. This was a refreshing look on assessment and evaluation outside of my experience using the British National Curriculum Standards & Levels, using logic models to structure the curriculum to produce outcome-based evaluations. Sounds heavy, but this seems to me to be a much more personal way of assessing with the focus on the impact on the attitudes and behaviours of the students, and not just the levels of the skills acquired. The impact on the community is also not something usually taken into account in conventional educational assessments. 
•  Smart Education Systems A keynote speech on the national narrative of the US Public School Education system - the focus on raising standards, mostly by investing in new assessment models and curriculum, very similar to the trends in the British system. The speaker, Warren Simmons, was suggesting that community arts programs are able to change that narrative by modelling collaborations between different organisations at the local level to provide students with a more holistic range of learning opportunities - 'community-centred education reform'. http://annenberginstitute.org/about/smart-education-systems
• Brand Essence This was a challenge to choose two words that really summed up the focus and mission of an organisation, and its competitive edge in the field. The process helped defined for me what impact I am hoping to make and why. Your chosen 'brand' would also determine how you publicise and market the organisation. My two words are not about what the organisation itself would look like, but what the youth involved would be like - Confident Initiators.

Looking forward to the Take A Stand conference in LA in February....

There were also some opportunities to check out some El Sistema programming in Chicago - I was able to visit El Sistema Ravinia (a program facilitated by an arts festival) and Hibbard Elementary School, one of the nucleos of the People's Music School Youth Orchestras. http://www.peoplesmusicschool.org/

http://www.ravinia.org/

A couple of great videos about the People's Music School and their Youth Orchestras - two of my fellow fellows were previously employed by this organisation and another fellow, Albert Oppenheimer, is the director of the Youth Orchestras.
http://chicagotonight.wttw.com/2012/06/11/yours-project

http://video.pbs.org/video/1901408265/

And of course, we couldn't leave Chicago without a visit to the Symphony! Emmanuel Ax playing Mozart - bliss...

 http://cso.org/TicketsAndEvents/EventDetails.aspx?eid=5677

Also of great interest is that Chicago Symphony and their training orchestra, the Civic Symphony, have launched a two-year Citizen Musician Fellowship. It sounds awesome and Yo-Yo Ma is heavily involved as well. Great to hear of more musicians being trained to use their music for the community: http://citizenmusician.org/

Rebuild Africa - A Sunday Afternoon Chat

A chance encounter meant that I attended a talk a couple of sundays ago about a NGO in Liberia called 'Rebuild Africa'. Despite its title, the organisation's work is solely in a few communities in Liberia. I was really struck by the way the program addresses what they call the pre-war child, the post-war child and young leaders, with separate projects designed for each situation; education, vocational training and mentoring respectively. Here is an organisation that has spent a lot of time considering the social issues, and what these children and youth most need.

The founder, Bill, showed us how much the program has progressed in the few years since it started - youth trained in the construction trade are being employed on graduating from their program, and in turn, more affordable homes are being built and made available. Entrepreneurship and 'holistic leadership' are also greatly emphasised in the education and mentoring programs. I love the fact that they have set up 'a rigorous program of education, training, mentoring, and practical hands-on experience'. Sounds like the Fellowship! And also like the more dynamic project-based learning experiences that we are investigating in community arts programs, as opposed to more conventional models of education. Bill talked about many challenges for the program, one of which being the ability of the teachers to be counsellors to the children who have undergone much trauma due to the civil war. This leads me back to think about how music has the potential to facilitate the healing process, minister to our emotional needs, and provide a platform to resolve conflicts...

 http://www.rebuildafrica.org/

Preparing for Venezuela #2

Further preparations....


Joe Tulchin - We had a great visit from an expert on Latin America, who was able to give us a bit of background on Venezuela: the history, economy, society and thoughts on El Sistema. What a fount of knowledge!http://www.joetulchin.com/

A former fellow Marie Montilla, along with her husband Jorge, taught in El Sistema for some years before the fellowship. They visited us along with their charming daughter who sings, plays the flute and violin. Our challenge was to practice teaching her only in Spanish. Great lessons we learned about the virtues of hand signals and demonstrations to make up for our less-than-fluent Spanish skills...

Marie works in Boston with the Youth and Family Enrichment Services (YOFES) music program http://www.yofes.org/oamecprogram/teachers-bios2/ and she is the founding director of Kids4Harmony in Pittsburgh: http://www.berkshirechildren.org/bcf_elsistema.html

Another alumni of El Sistema came to talk to us about his experiences. Now a freelance performer and teacher (he plays the cello in the Boston Phil), he spent 12 years studying the cello after starting his music education learning the cuatro. It was easy to tell how Aristides believes in the power of music to save lives - most of his contemporaries in the neighbourhood he grew up in have either been involved in shootings or imprisoned. He taught us this beautiful song 'Como llora una estrella':

http://www.aristidesrivas.com/
Aristides was also involved in a trip to a village near the Angel Falls in Venezuela, where a group of four musicians taught and prepared a concert with a local music project. The project was started by the daughter of a missionary who wished to form a choir at the village church, which later grew into a large string orchestra at a standard where they were able to perform Bach. See this great video documenting their trip: http://vimeo.com/34528353

Two concerts...

Being spoilt for choice for concerts in Boston, I have been taking advantage of the great fortune of having two concert halls right next to the El Sistema office - NEC's Jordan Hall and Boston Symphony Hall. Our first visit to Symphony Hall included the Boston Symphony Orchestra performing Mahler's 2nd Symphony 'Resurrection' with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Mahler's strong belief in the resurrection led him to write the lyrics to the finale of the symphony: "O believe, my heart, but believe: Nothing will be lost to you!". Interestingly, the last time the BSO and Tanglewood performed the piece, they created a trailer to promote the performance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPRzC5mHKDQ

Some of my fellow Fellows and I queued to get $9 rush tickets to hear Yo-Yo Ma play Shostakovich's Cello Concerto at Symphony Hall with the BSO. I first became familiar with this Concerto after watching Guy Johnson break a string whilst playing it in the BBC Young Musician of the Year final. Yo-Yo Ma managed to convey the feelings of frustration and aggression of the piece without damaging his instrument! Having read a bit on Shostakovich at school (including the story of him sleeping with a packed suitcase at the doorstep of his apartment so as not to disturb his family if he was arrested), it was shocking to again experience his music which conveys a sense of the oppression that he suffered whilst surviving as an artist under Stalin. Ma also struck us as being a very humble performer and having a different persona on stage to that of most professional soloists we have seen. He took his time to welcome and thank those on stage and the audience, and would only bow with the conductor at the end of the performance. He is heavily involved with a couple of amazing music community projects: http://www.silkroadproject.org/, http://cso.org/Institute/CitizenMusician.aspx. Other highlights of the concert included the conductor's flamboyant hair and amazing ability to use different gestures to cue different instruments. $9 well spent.