Barquisimeto #4

 

Cabudare

The Cabudare nucleo is an example of how a music centre has created a network of its own in seeking to expand its ability to serve the community. The rather complex model was explained to us by the director Emilio. The nucleo has a central site based at a cultural centre with seven other extension sites altogether serving 3,400 chn with 74 teachers. Despite their efforts to reach out to as many willing students as possible, there are still many kids they can’t accept into the program as they are unable to accommodate them all. Again children can’t come every day as there is not enough space. The first site we visit is one of the extension sites, and it serves 500 children with 1 secretary for administration work. There are a lot of parents and relatives around, more so than at other nucleos we have visited so far.

In addition to his duties directing activities at the eight sites, Emilio also conducts the main orchestra. He has spent 26 years working in El Sistema and told us that the experience has been “fun, informal learning – not work!” He started his musical career by learning the cuatro and then studying at the conservatory. Alfredo shortly afterwards offered him a job in El Sistema. Like most of the directors we talked to, Emilio was open and honest about the workings of the music centres. One issue is student retention; a lot of them come regularly to the program for between a year to three years. This makes it difficult to show results of the student’s learning to parents to motivate them to keep their kids in the program. It also means that the level of most children is restricted to beginner and intermediate with more advanced musicians being directed to the nucleo based at the conservatory.

 

At the extension nucleo, we were treated to a presentation by the Handbells Choir and observed the children’s orchestra rehearsal briefly. The rehearsal seemed to be pretty relaxed and not necessarily as efficient as we are used to, with problems not necessarily being addressed straight away. This is a reminder of how much more time the teachers have here, they can afford to allow the students to figure it out during the repetitive rehearsals. The highlight for me was the Cantoria Cabudare, an adult choir made up of parents and other members of the community.

We were then quickly rushed to the main site where a concert of Christmas songs by the Coro Infantil (Children’s Choir) all decked out in Santa hats was taking place in the auditorium of the cultural centre. We were starting to become familiar with the most popular Venezuelan Christmas carols by this point. After a brief peek at the guitar and cuatro class rehearsing in the dark in the art room, we saw the original room where the orchestra first rehearsed at the nucleo. It was not much bigger than your average kitchen.