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/