Friday, March 28, 2014

El Sistema Kenya

The wonderful Karis Crawford has just launched El Sistema Kenya! Can't wait to visit. This will be the first music program modelled on El Sistema in East Africa. She is focusing on building up a strings orchestra. So awesome!

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/el-sistema-kenya





 

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Connecting cultures through music

http://www.booomerang.dk/projects/bygger-bro-gennem-musik/

Mzungu Kichaa and his new EP 'Relax' with his Tanzanian band - also this website shows a great way to fundraise for music projects with different 'deals' to donate for.

Mzungu Kichaa and band (photo by Pernille Baerentsen)

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Teaching at Umoja Music School

Check out this fabulous article by Alison Feuerwerker who was in Arusha for a year at the Umoja Music School 2011-12

http://haiafrika.com/travel/contribution-teaching-violin-tanzania/


 

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Takeaways from the Take A Stand conference February 2014

Collaborative Creativity


The Take A Stand conference led me to think about how El Sistema-inspired programs can foster opportunities for collaborative creative projects that deal with social issues.

Guy Raz started off the symposium by reminding us of artistic works that were catalysts for, or highlighted, a change in society, for example Picasso’s 'Guernica'. This work was a new creation that pushed the boundaries of existing artistic forms and styles. Leon Botstein followed this by emphasising that music is a participatory act that is invented and re-invented – new creations as a result of a collaborative process. Robert Duke then spoke about the fundamental purpose of music being to convey something to other human beings, and in the case of the El Sistema-inspired movement, we seek to communicate some very powerful messages about social issues.

I encountered a great example of how this can be achieved. The Creative Connections workshop led by Dan Trahey (Orchkids program in Baltimore) demonstrated how a large group of people of different abilities can easily collaborate in fun compositional activities. This one-hour session gave plenty of freedom for participants to use musical ideas from a variety of styles and backgrounds. Four small groups were created to easily contribute ideas which were put together to form a composition; Joe Hamm used his background in percussion to suggest a rhythm that selected individuals could improvise over, and a YOLA student gave Trahey the 'Boom-shak-a-lak-a' call and response introduction. In addition, a participant of previous Creative Connections sessions described to me how longer workshops can operate around a social theme as a focus for ideas.
These experiences left me questioning how El Sistema-inspired programs could consider ways in which communities can be built and strengthened, by using collaborative creative projects that seek to promote awareness of social issues.

Redefining the Role of the Choral Singer

The full version of my February 2014 article for The Ensemble:


The Fellows had the privilege of meeting inspiring young musicians in Venezuela who are challenging the traditional role of the choral singer. In various ways, we saw how El Sistema supports young choral singers to be teachers that interact with their community. Firstly, an informal teaching style allows directors to act as facilitators and give over the responsibility of teaching as soon as students are able. For example, one choir director was training apprentice directors during the rehearsal, and emphasised the importance of conducting even the youngest children, so students are sub-consciously learning to be conductors.

Secondly, we saw students team-teach with roles including director, vocal coach, accompanist and teaching assistant. This team is often made up of students from the same advanced ensemble, in which they have formed close supporting relationships. Those who teach at other nucleos in the same area benefit from collaborating with their peers who they see on a daily basis for their own rehearsals.

Thirdly, the sequential curriculum they teach is unified among the choirs. The teaching team have themselves learnt the repertoire together and can more easily pass on that knowledge. Likewise, the extensive warm-up routines featured many similar activities, and the repetition allows members of the choir to be confident to lead the warm-up, thus beginning to assume a greater role in teaching.

We can learn from these approaches which empower students to create supportive teaching teams, and redefine the role of a choral singer in the community. By taking on positions of peer leadership and by being positive role models, they become more effective in creating social change in the lives of children.

Some Reflections on Social Action through Music Education in El Sistema


The most prominent feature in observing the activities of El Sistema programming, is the difference in the priority to many traditional Western institutions – not to produce virtuoso musicians but to promote the self-confidence of the individual and build communities with high quality music education. This priority is reflected in their approach: 

The focus is not on the standards required of each musician but on building self-esteem, and in turn pushing the boundaries of perceived capability. The initial mission was to show Venezuela and the world that Venezuelans are capable of outstanding symphonic music-making. This was extended to Venezuelan children of increasingly more challenging backgrounds, whether economically or those with learning difficulties. I feel that in the face of a struggling economy and uneasy political climate, the mission has developed further into fostering a sense of communal identity and pride in being Venezuelan. Essentially El Sistema doesn’t tell a story of a country with great youth orchestras and choirs, but that Venezuela has a future and a hope in youth who are proud of their Venezuelan identity, and know how to pass this pride onto the next generation. Venezuelan youth know that they cannot achieve excellence alone and must strive to work together, and they are aware that they are part of a movement that is excelling on a global level.

The learning activities at the nucleos are characterized by an informal and flexible approach where many activities are led by young people. We saw many familial relationships that blur the lines of student-teacher, ‘them’ and ‘us’, but instead reflects the position of friends in a joint musical learning journey. There is no sense of a strict hierarchy amongst members of a nucleo, but instead there is humility in those who are more experienced sharing their expertise with others, being aware of their own knowledge gaps and wanting to learn more, at whichever level they operate on. For example, we heard of teachers with forty years’ worth of experience taking classes at a conservatory with their eighteen-year old students. This creates many opportunities for youth empowerment through the attitude that a role doesn’t necessarily need someone with the credentials and experience, but instead someone with determination and the eagerness to have a go, plus an idea of where to ask for help and guidance.

This also allows for the cultivation of a multiplicity of roles as a musician, which has been summarized by previous El Sistema Fellows as CATS (Citizen, Artist, Teacher, Scholar), but could also include a myriad of music-related positions from administrator to luthier. Indeed, many staff members at Fundamusical  (El Sistema mangement) and at the nucleos are alumni. Overall, we saw a much more relaxed and friendly learning culture; where experiments and changes are supported, relevant music-making encouraged, students are given positive encouragement rather than demoralizing feedback, and mistakes are not seen as failures but work in progress.

El Sistema has created a ‘family’ of interdependent ensembles where the community of ensembles is fed through a spirit of generosity, sharing, & collaboration. This is found in the unified teaching approach, a unified sequential curriculum, the efforts of the special needs projects to integrate students with the other programs, and the collaboration of huge ensembles in large scale projects. Many of the younger groups rely on teachers from the more advanced level ensembles. This means that teachers tend to descend from one maestro creating a ‘family tree’ of musical knowledge being passed on down the ‘generations’.

The network helps produce a stronger sense of unity and community on a macro level, but also propagates close relationships on a micro level. The intensity and regularity of rehearsals allows the nucleo to become a home from home where relationships made are deep and meaningful between students and teachers. This creates a unique opportunity for mentorship and the modelling of positive social behaviours, as well as excellent music-making, to take place on a daily basis. The sequential curriculum allows for teachers to pass on their musical knowledge in an informal way which echoes oral learning where songs are passed down from generation to generation. This personalised curriculum – learning through experience rather than academic study, learning from people not textbooks – again allows for a deep emotional connection to exist between teacher and student.

El Sistema effects social change through providing powerful scenarios and platforms for people to interact and relate to one another to create personal, and ultimately social change; affecting self-esteem, self-confidence, pride and identity through an informal learning atmosphere of humble teachers, inclusion and integration of all backgrounds and learning abilities, valuing every person’s musical contribution in a variety of forms, sharing and collaboration between ensembles, deep relationships with other students and teachers, and a flexible learning experience.

Perspectives on El Sistema


Perspectives on El Sistema has been prepared by the 2014 Class of Sistema Fellows at New England Conservatory following our month-long residency in Venezuela in November-December 2013.

It has been specifically written in response to a request from Dr. Jose Antonio Abreu for the Sistema Fellows Program to provide El Sistema with thoughts and reflections on our expectations prior to our trip, and our time observing and working with the program.

As curious and committed learners in the expanding field of El Sistema, we feel it is our responsibility to share our learning with all educators dedicated to social justice through the arts. Herein we offer a glimpse of our collective insight, immersed in the Venezuelan tradition, as a possible resource to others in this field. In addition, it expresses our ambitions to use these considerations in our future work.

We are eager to present this paper as a token of our great esteem for Dr. Abreu and the immense generosity and kindness we experienced in gaining unparalleled access to El Sistema in Venezuela. We hope our collective voices can reflect our deep appreciation for having been so warmly embraced by the El Sistema family.
To download the paper, click on the link below:
http://sistemafellows.typepad.com/my-blog/2014/02/index.html