What a year!

Return to the Pastoral Women's Council

So tomorrow I go back to the Assistant Programme Manager job for the Pastoral Women's Council. Three months of reporting, fundraising and helping to find someone to take over the position permanently in March. I hope this will be more great management experience as well as getting to grips with how an NGO works here. All good for when more musical opportunities come my way...

The Pied Piper of Haydom

Lena Ward - Haydom Lutheran Hospital

 

It has been my great fortune to visit this hospital for a week every month for the last four months. Whilst Kirstein flies nurses and chanjo (vaccines) to remote villages in the area, I have been enjoying a kind of retreat; writing, researching and getting to know some of the people who are dedicating their time and expertise to this astonishing hospital. I was lucky enough to get a detailed tour of the hospital on my first visit, as it coincided with a visitor from a nearby health clinic who was eager to see if their patients could be referred here.

 

A friend suggested that I should take my violin to play for the patients, so on this last visit I managed to play for the children and their relatives. They have visiting hours between 2-4pm; the first afternoon I played in the main room where they have parties on weekends, and the second time I played in each room. A wonderful nurse called Sister Paulina was my escort to the different rooms and joined in singing with me as I played Swahili hymns and Christmas carols. It was great to hear relatives joining in (mostly the mamas) and clapping along.

 

There has been a lot of debate in the media recently about the well-intentioned Sir Bob and the re-release of 'Do they know its Christmas?' to raise money for the ebola crisis. It's hard to believe that the same tales of the woes of Africa are still being thrown out today - that the West hasn't moved on in their misconceptions and misjudgements after 30 years. Yes, the ebola crisis is horrific and requires external help, but it is only the crises that demand money that ever reach the wider attention of the West. I want to focus on the assets and the potential. The children and families in the Lena ward are receiving good care, they most definitely know it will soon be Christmas, and they most likely have a better idea of the true meaning of Christmas than their counterparts in the West. Mungu awabariki! 

 



Ignition!

I have just finished reading Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code, and I was especially interested in his idea of there being, in the learning journey, points of igniting desire to commit to deep practice of skills – Coyle says that along with master coaching this leads to being an expert of whichever discipline is involved. This ignition could also be termed as intrinsic motivation. We used this term a lot in our discussions and writing during the Fellowship, but we didn’t have time to really unpack what it means.

Coyle cites the following factors as tinderboxes waiting to ignite a passion for ‘deep practice’:

1) Having an expectation and understanding of commitment involved: Gary McPherson studied students new to music in 1997:

“We instinctively think of each new student as a blank slate, but the ideas they bring to that first lesson are probably far more important than anything a teacher can do, or any amount of practice. It’s all about their perception of self. At some point very early on they had a crystallizing experience that brings the idea to the fore that says, I am a musician. That idea is like a snowball rolling downhill”.

2) Role models

3) Sense of belonging to a group 

4) Sense of danger or lack of safety - dissatisfaction leads to efforts to change our situation or the pressure of impending accountability such as a concert or exam

5) Being the underdog

6) Praise of effort rather than achievement

Daniel Pink is his book Drive adds the following:

7) Autonomy – Being able to choose your own direction

8) Mastery – Satisfaction of getting better at something 

9) Purpose - this could be personal “I want to be the first person who goes to college in my family” or seeking a change in the lives of others “I empathise with this person’s situation and I want to do something to help”.

I’m writing this at a Lutheran missionary hospital in Tanzania. As the hospital approaches its 60^th anniversary, you can’t help but consider the ‘deep practice’ of Norwegian missionaries who built the best equipped hospital in the country, in the middle of the bush, surmounting cultural, logistical, geographical, financial and linguistic barriers, and who have sponsored children from primary school age to have them return to the hospital as surgeons. I’m not sure you could even grasp a sense of the commitment that would be needed from those early years to now, although there was and is a sense of danger in terms of providing decent medical services to a catchment area of 2 million people. It is their sense of purpose that has ignited their commitment and perseverance in this task.

I have one more point to add:

10) Personal relevancy – searching and learning about yourself leads to personal satisfaction, relaxation and often emotional and spiritual uplifting.

 

The El Sistema program in Venezuela has been able to create a culture that ignites many of the above:

1) Understanding of expectations - Students see the progression from paper violins to to youth orchestra level in the nucleo and the daily commitment to the program.

2) Role models - Along with the inspiring figure of Dr Abreu, Dudamel is the hero of many musicians in Venezuela.

3) Sense of belonging - Students go through their years in the nucleo belonging to the ensemble, and the Venezuela jacket is their uniform showing that they belong to a greater group of the Venezuelan people.

4) Sense of danger  - not just a feeling of unease on the streets of Caracas, but that the music education available to them at the nucleos is not found elsewhere and is therefore to be treasured and appreciated. Some facilities are barely suitable for their purpose but they soldier on regardless. Students are also prepared for a performance shortly after starting to play their instrument.

5) Underdog – Venezuela has no strong history of classical ensembles or a place in the classical world compared to the cultural bastions of Europe and the US.

6) Tochar y luchar – 'fight and play' rather than you’ve either got the X factor or not.

7) Autonomy - One aspect of motivation that El Sistema may not be encouraging; there doesn’t seem to be much choice of instrument and repertoire, and there is lack of opportunities to study other musical disciplines such as composition and improvisation. There also doesn’t seem to be much flexibility in terms of how much you want to commit to the program, the daily rigorous rehearsals and regular performances, and there is not uniform access to auditions, more advanced ensembles and touring opportunities throughout the country.

8) Mastery - Many El Sistema commentators remark on the sheer brilliance of students, the joy apparent in performances and how many hours they are willing to commit to practice. Being invited to take over the Salzburg Festival must say something about the excellence of the musicians in the program.

9) Purpose - The corporate mission that music belongs to the community and exists to serve others.

10) Personal relevancy - Eric Booth: "El Sistema conductors and teachers invest far more instructional time in describing sections in terms of stories, or giving visceral images for a note or a phrase, than do traditional conductors. This enables the musicians to make stronger emotional and physical connections to the music. This investment in emotional connection fuels the Sistema teaching truth that “passion provokes precision”—meaning that a young artist’s emotional investment leads to mastery more reliably over the long haul than technical drill; indeed, the hunger to express more fully drives the improvement and creates motivation for technical solutions more than compliance or a generalized hunger for improvement."

Maybe the fact that El Sistema reaches 9 out of 10 'ignition' points explains why so many people devote their time to the program, both in and out of Venezuela. 

Uraki Secondary School

Last week, I went to visit the music program at a government school on the other side of town. Uraki has had a link with Makumira University Music Department for two years now, and three students and an university tutor deliver classes there every other day. The school is a secondary school with students in Form I-IV and roughly ages 11 to 16 years. At the end of Form IV they take their O-Level exams, and like most secondary schools in Tanzania, there is no provision to progress to A-Level.

In fact, they are now in the midst of the end of year exams and many students were busy cleaning the classrooms ready for exam week, and even the District Educational Officer was visiting. She was especially interested in the science laboratory which had been equipped with donations from the UK, and another lab was also being constructed. As part of the Secondary Education Development Plan, the government has ordered that each secondary school build a laboratory, without providing the resources to do so.

We had a chat first with the Headmaster who is very eager to have musical provision in the school. The music students are hoping to give a music class for the teachers, but they had already left the school leaving just a few staff around including the Teacher On Duty who walks around with a stick!

The bell was rung for assembly, and all the students lined up in their separate forms with different colour jumpers for each form. I introduced myself and then the students were given the choice to clean or take part in a music activity. The session I saw was interesting - they didn't seem quite into learning new material at this point in the afternoon, and some just walked away. However, at the end, they sang a well-known song from their early music classes (see video above) and were having a great time.

In addition to the practical ensemble classes, the students are receiving music theory lessons which enables them to take the predominantly theoretical national exams in music (NECTA). Throughout the school, pass rates are very low, but they are started to excel in their music exams. The university tutor remarked that their goal is to show how music can change a school, and with the best pass marks in music, the students can begin to gain a sense of what they can achieve!

Music For One Foundation

A couple of months ago I met up with the second cohort of musicians from the South Korean organisation Music For One Foundation. The Foundation describes itself as "a performing arts-based humanitarian organisation dedicated to working with children and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential through music and music education". There are many programs that make up the organisation but volunteers Stacy, Kris and Chanmi are part of the Gift of Music Program which seeks to deliver music education to communities in less developed countries.

Their program has funding from the Korean government for three years and they are teaching at a university music department, a Lutheran Bible school and a children's centre with 300 primary aged children. Let's hope it can continue!

 

SFRC Reception

The next two years on the Sistema journey! The formal transition of the Sistema Fellows Program to the Sistema Fellows Resource Center occurred yesterday at the New England Conservatory. I so look forward to joining my fellow alumni making music with youth across the world when my project starts soon...

Go to this link to find the final report on the Sistema Fellows Program:
http://necmusic.edu/sistema

Marching off the map

At a sermon at my church in Arusha, a Lutheran pastor told us this story: When a battalion of Roman soldiers were about to march into territory that hadn’t been recorded yet, they sent a messenger back to Rome to report that they were about to march off the map. At the moment, in the midst of planning, conceptualising and researching, I feel a lot like these soldiers - and I’m also looking out for a battalion to join me!

A lot of what I aim to do has definitely already been charted, or is in the early sketches; a music project using traditional music, an El Sistema-inspired program, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary performances, community engagement across cultural and linguistic boundaries. However, there is a long way to go for these landscapes to be fully explored.

For example, Sistema-inspired programs are mostly using classical and western folk music and without much consideration of the students’ and community’s cultural background. The traditional ensemble set-ups of the orchestra and choir are used as paradigms for teamwork, co-operation and the cultivation of empathy – Daniel Barenboim’s “template for democracy”. There are few models of using other genres of music in intensive programming for social outcomes. Likewise, they all offer free music instruction and so rely on tempting donors with easy-on-the-eye statistics about the grade improvements of students involved in their programs. There is a desperate need for these programs to develop some sort of self-sustainability and to advocate for more community responsibility for the program, and especially for the programs in the context of developing countries.

In the West, we have an obsession with specialisation, becoming an expert in one skill or field. This has resulted in the delineation of a myriad of genres and styles of art, and an ensuing hierarchy, so that ‘crossover’ between different genres of music is generally not encouraged. In the world of education, examination boards create qualifications that put up barriers between rigidly defined artistic expressions, although this is starting to change with newer multi-disciplinary qualifications such as BTEC gaining as much credibility as the A-Level. If cross-pollination between different genres of one art-form is rare, consider how infrequently cross-arts exhibits or performances are supported in schools. By contrast, in Kiswahili there is one word for a community performance of various musical expressions ‘ngoma’, and one word for the arts ‘sanaa’.

Another landscape that I really get excited about exploring is that of the artistic performance experience. Being trained in the world of classical music, I have a set of rituals and etiquette wired into my performing system. In our contemporary urban societies, however, we consume culture and the arts at a fast pace with multi-sensory experiences and interactions that are incompatible with the concert hall culture. So what can these new culturally and community relevant performances look like?  

One landscape that gives me a headache thinking about is that of how to evaluate artistic quality. For many in the mainstream music world, quality means a high level of individual proficiency on an instrument, such as a prodigious display on the violin or piano, or an ensemble executing a complex technical piece. For others it means a close imitation of recorded artists; their sound and style of musical expression, their arrangement of a known song. These criteria for quality reflect the individual and isolated life of a musician seeking a place in a competitive performance world. This lens would not be appropriate for assessing the quality of a master drummer leading a drumming workshop at a community venue, or the performance of a traditional dance troupe.

Lastly, there is the balance and synergy of artistic and social aims in community music programs. Social change through music can be interpreted in a myriad of ways. Two versions that I have been considering involve using music as a support for educational attainment or learning outcomes, and for community-building or strengthening social cohesion. For the first version, Sistema-inspired programs are beginning to accumulate data about how intensive music programs affect achievement at school and there is a growing pile of awesome brain science as to how the process of learning music supports other learning. The field of community music and El Sistema in Venezuela answers to the second version, but where does the artist focus on the quality of the artistic product and where do they focus on the quality of community engagement and social impact?

Peter Renshaw has this to say about one music program in the UK: “But the work of Music in Prisons also has a social aim – basically, to stop people re-offending. Music is then seen as a vehicle for achieving social ends – but the music leader is not an artistic ‘social worker’ or therapist”. In other words, musicians can and should find a place for themselves in community contexts but remember that they are first and foremost musicians. At a workshop the Fellows attended at Dreamyard in the Bronx, NYC, one teaching artist talked about how the arts succeeds in bringing the community together and strengthening bonds so there is more potential for community support. This view sees the arts as establishing and supporting bridges between community members.

So not only should we march off the map and explore new territory, but we should use our artistic expertise to build foundations and use the materials available in the community to construct bridges. What this will look like is waiting to be discovered.

The Simon Bolivar Project

The Simon Bolivar Project in essence is to expand the El Sistema program to reach 1 million students by the year 2019. As noted in various articles (http://nsnbc.me/2013/05/23/venezuela-to-expand-its-el-sistema-music-program/) the project will be funded by the President's Office. 

Roderigo gave us more information about the methods being used to reach the goal of 1 million:

·         El Sistema will continue to lobby community leaders to get permission to start programs, and knock on doors in barrios to invite families to be involved. They receive continued requests from communities as well to have El Sistema work with their children.

·         The program will speed up its de-centralisation process in order to reach the required number of children. Currently audition opportunities, instruments and other resources are difficult to get outside Caracas, and there are not many opportunities to play in Caracas or tour nationally. There needs to be a stronger bridge between the two worlds of El Sistema – the ‘elite’ and ‘rural’ nucleos by supporting and mentoring teachers sent to rural nucleos.

·         El Sistema will build on the government-led Bolivarian school scheme as a way of working with the public schools and including them as part of the project. The school day usually ends at 1pm, but this is extended to 5pm so the schools essentially become nucleos. Parents already pay a lot for childcare during this time so this would also greatly benefit families. The scheme is 6 years old and currently involves art and sports activities. El Sistema was initially consulted by the government because of the organisation’s long experience dealing with large amounts of children in arts activities. There has been Presidential approval for El Sistema to take on this scheme as part of the project along with the access to funding, resources and facilities that are part of the scheme.

·         The program needs to triple the amount of staff (including allowing existing teachers to get certification) and to create foundations to allocate funds. Lots of institutional development needs to occur – there has been much expansion vertically but now El Sistema needs to expand its base to create opportunities for all regardless of location.

·         The Special Needs Department at Barquisimeto aims to create a pilot program in state schools and then replicate the model at other schools.

We heard lots of variance in numbers of how many students are currently in the program and how many each area was aiming to get on board. At some points it sounded like a race to get as many numbers in the program as possible, regardless of the quality of musical engagement. We talked we some nucleo directors about their strategy to reach this goal.

Jesus – Nucleo Director at Merida

Jesus is convinced that the project will be successful due to Dr Abreu’s visionary leadership; “There are those who doubt his huge plans but when you speak to him, he makes them sound plausible, he convinces people as a musician and an economist.” He pointed out the reputation and celebrity surrounding El Sistema, Dudamel and the program’s global renown; “Everyone wants to be part of El Sistema - the real revolution!”  Families are inspired by the achievements of their neighbours and they realise that background isn’t an issue. According to Jesus, this year the whole of El Sistema wants to recruit 120,000 more kids (he thinks a more realistic figure of how many in the program now is 390,000).

Merida’s strategy this year is to extend to six new schools and 6000 more students, which has been made more possible with the new cable car from the town centre to the barrios. It is impossible to expand the existing nucleos as they are already too full, so they will work with the schools first and then open another nucleo. They started in November 2013 with choir and recorders; students share instruments, there is a carousel of classes, and the program also sells violins to students (the cheapest are 5,000 Bolivares).They aim to present these new students’ performances and then get money for orchestral instruments from regional and local governments. Jesus spoke about issues with getting the directors at the state schools on board with the program, but not with the students and their parents. They eventually want to get 20,000 children in the whole state involved.

Victor – Nucleo Director in Ejido, Merida State

Victor worked in the nucleo development office in Caracas. His area goal for 2019 is to expand the number of children served from 487 to 3325. Within four days, they set up 25 small music centres of 1,300 students in the barrios in the area (modulos) with only one teacher for singing, cuatro and theory. An issue is to get motivated teachers for the modulos who are willing to adapt to the school environment and the facilities available. When asked about the pace of the project, he replied; “It’s going quickly because it is working! When a Venezuelan has an idea, you just do it.”

From his experience in Caracas, he told us how the culture of the new students is the most challenging aspect of nucleo development, as they come from very difficult and dangerous backgrounds. He was involved in going from house to house with teachers to invite people to the project. They even talked to the ‘mafia’ about bringing culture to the barrios, and persuaded them to leave the program alone and protect them.

It will be interesting to see how the dynamics of the El Sistema program adapt to working in schools, considering that many Sistema-inspired programs are in-school or after-school programs. The success of this project will undoubtedly continue the program’s ever-increasing global influence.  

Return to Caracas #5

In addition to the stories from Valdemar Rodriguez, we heard many accounts of Dr Abreu from students, teachers and nucleo directors during our time in Venezuela. Many directors knew him very well and for a considerable part of their life, either as a colleague or mentor. Here are some of the stories we heard about this legendary figure before we had the privilege to meet him.

Jesus – Director of the Merida nucleos

Jesus met Dr Abreu when he was 9, and still when he visits him, he always prepares what he will say! During these meetings problems are presented with solutions and advice, and often he will sort out problems straightaway - he knows who to call. He has been inspired by his incredible energy and Significant lessons he  has learnt from Dr Abreu how to protect others and to enjoy the tedious administrative part of his role.

Gary – Nucleo Director at Barquisimeto

Gary was a part of the original Simon Bolivar Orchestra, and attributed his greatest influence and inspiration to Dr Abreu. He admires how he has the ability to work with orchestras of all ages, and inspire such joy in music-making whilst also being very serious!

Roderigo – Deputy Director of International Relations

Roderigo worked with El Sistema for 12 years, and had been working closely with Dr Abreu for 6 years. These are his impressions:

·         He sees himself as a musician first and foremost (he wrote his occupation simply as ‘musician’ on a registration card when going to the doctors in London).

·         He has created a dynamic and flexible organisation which can adapt and change. He delivers on ideas and promises and has even pre-considered ways to deliver, and this increases respect for him.

·         He hates bureaucracy and red tape but instead “lives to see the work get done”. When he is seeking financial support for the program, he presents with musicians and not a strategic plan. He motivates others through passionate speeches and calls on people to reconsider where they are now and what they are doing.

·         Many have felt their lives changed because of El Sistema and by Dr Abreu, and this creates huge motivation in nucleo directors and other staff who work around the clock to serve their communities.

·         There will be no biography or film about Dr Abreu during his lifetime, and he has refused many offers, but instead he asks people to focus on the work and the larger organisation.

·         Despite health problems in recent years and the continuing expansion of the program, he continues to conduct the Caracas Youth Orchestra every day and he has about fifteen conductor pupils.

Roderigo mentioned three main sources of inspiration for Dr Abreu:

1) Growing up in a community of music-making - Dr Abreu was born in a town close to Merida. These towns in the Andes have a strong family tradition and work hard together to promote the artistic growth of children. His grandfather, Anselmis, was a band leader from a city in Italy and apparently the whole town migrated to Venezuela. The band played arrangements of lots of different styles as well as Venezuelan music. Anselmis was the artist of the town and ran all the culture; theatre and small opera productions. Dr Abreu and Roderigo’s family were close and toured with a band in the same area of the Andes. When he later moved to Barquisimeto, he still made regular visits to this cultural world created by his grandparents in the Andes.

2) Devout Jesuit Christian faith – Dr Abreu studied at the Catholic university of Venezuela where he met with the philosophy of doing charity using what you are passionate about, and applying everything you know to help as many people as possible. He was encouraged to do a lot of volunteer work and be faced with realities of social issues. He met priests, politicians, and was particularly inspired by meeting the political author Arturo Uslar Pietri.

3) Doralisa – His piano teacher in Barquisimeto was an immense musical influence on Dr Abreu, in particular how she arranged orchestral works for many pianos so that her students could play together.

Meeting

On our last full day in Venezuela, we had our much-awaited meeting with Dr Abreu. We had prepared and rehearsed together a few minutes each to share our post-fellowship ambitions and how our Venezuela experience had influenced our plans, along with some constructive feedback and observations.

I began with explaining the reasons for my interest in El Sistema. For some time I had been debating the question of how to encourage initiative in students to change their circumstances. My experience with a women’s empowerment program had shown that students had a lack of confidence, little encouragement and few opportunities and resources in Tanzania. I mentioned my own personal experience in choirs; my growth in confidence and joy of being part of a team making a beautiful sound. My experience in Venezuela has shown me how music can be used in a powerful way to build communities and the self-esteem of youth – through positive encouragement, attention, and inclusion. This large family of orchestras and choirs places trust in their youth who become an integral part of the running of the program and effective role models.

Dr Abreu replied by mentioning how he has always had a strong appreciation for African choirs and their exuberance and confident musicality, and he has often thought about an exchange – a symphonic choir month long workshop with concert at end. He has dreamt about starting something in Africa but this should happen at a grass roots level.

At the end of the meeting he encouraged us to keep a record of what the Fellows achieve and what it means for the future of El Sistema in other countries. He also requested that the Fellows write a paper on our observations and thoughts to help the program prepare for 2014 which can be found here.

When we returned from Venezuela, we were given a reception at NEC. We shared some stories and strived to express our experiences in words! Our maestro wordsmith, President Tony Woodcock, managed it by stating that Dr Abreu is one of the great men of our time, and that El Sistema “transforms the way we look at society”.

 

Return to Caracas #4

When we met with the Deputy Executive Director of El Sistema, who is also the Head of the Clarinet Academy, the Latin American Academy, and the Director of the Simon Bolivar Conservatory, we obviously had many questions for him. But he had other ideas, and instead he gave us an interesting two hour-long retelling of his career in El Sistema and early relationship with Dr Abreu:

Valdemar Rodriguez also hails from a village in the Andes mountains where he studied music from the age of 4. His family played in a symphonic band, and his father and his friends were very passionate about and committed to this ensemble. At an early age, he was driven by an anxiety and need to read music. His father eventually taught him to read music, and he constantly listened in and observed rehearsals. Despite wanting to play the trumpet he was given a clarinet to play. He didn’t have anyone his own level to play with, and his aggressive and pushy father made music something to love but also to fear. There was much competition among the families of the town as to who could get their child to join the band first, and alas, Valdemar didn’t progress as much as expected. On one occasion, he stole his clarinet back after his father had hid it in a locker after hearing him play popular music.

When he was 11 years old he became a member of the band at the music school in San Felipe. At this point, El Sistema had a presence in Caracas, Barquisimeto and Maracay, and Valdemar spent many frustrated years trying to become a part of the program. When he was 15 years old, Dr Abreu came to San Felipe and gave a speech to inaugurate a nucleo there. His band leader apparently convinced Dr Abreu that Valdemar could play bass clarinet in the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. However, his parents would not allow the move to Caracas until he had finished high school.

His next encounter with El Sistema was a seminario (a sort of musical holiday camp). 10-15 nucleos already existed, and 40-50 people from each orchestra were involved, including a children’s orchestra of 14-20 years that Valdemar took part in. There were auditions for stand places in the children’s orchestra, and he finished first out of about 40 clarinets. He met many section leaders there who became principals in the Simon Bolivar and some also now lead academies. This experience was a turning point for him - to see how it was possible to be a professional musician.

He joined Valencia University to study electrical engineering, and he became a part of the orchestra and woodwind quintet there. He still got the chance to listen to rehearsals and concerts of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. He remembers that the concert hall was very small with 320 seats but 600 people fitted in. Abreu conducted with a tremendous energy and audience members were moved to tears. Valdemar moved secretly to Caracas. There he became a student of Maestro Rossi from Chile, who became his first long-term teacher. He gradually fixed his embouchure and posture: “That’s the day I stopped engineering and started from scratch”.

The members of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra lived in the same block as him, and he followed them to rehearsals, concerts and after parties, whilst continuing to practise hard. There was no conservatory at that point. Friends helped him get an audition with Dr Abreu who had created an office in a backstage space in the Teatro Teresa Carreno. He gave him a page from the nutcracker suite but it was an A clarinet part and he had never heard this piece of music before! Finally he played some Mozart, whilst Dr Abreu played the orchestra parts on the piano by heart. He was invited to join the orchestra and told to show up the following Monday – he called everyone apart from his father who thought he was still doing engineering in Valencia.

But things had changed by the following week. Dr Abreu was busy Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, he was distant and Valdemar had to chase him to the theatre. He was told to learn several symphonies and that auditions would be in a month. Valdemar bought recordings and began to study everything on a B flat clarinet transposed to A. He studied in parking lots and friend’s bathrooms! Four months later, he had been fired from the Valencia band, dropped out of university, his savings were gone, and he had no place to live, wandering around Parco Central late in the evening to find someone to crash with. Rossi wrote a letter that he still has faith he could become a great clarinettist which he gave to Dr Abreu on the conducting podium.

Eventually he was unable to stay in Caracas as his parents found out where he was, and so he went back to Valencia, stopped playing, and tried to get back into engineering. He met Maestro Felipe at a festival who was the conductor at the Carora nucleo, and who knew Dr Abreu well. Felipe called Dr Abreu who replied by asking what had happened and that he needed to be ready to play on Monday! Only one of the fifteen clarinettists showed up on the first day so Valdemar became the soloist in the New World Symphony, he found an A clarinet, was given a suit, played in the concert, and was congratulated by Dr Abreu on his solo. Rossi thanked Dr Abreu for reading the letter, but he didn’t know that he was finally in the orchestra because no-one else showed up!

The orchestra had player levels A-G, and the salary was less than half of the Valencia symphonic band. When he was finally an official member of the Simon Bolivar, he was put in at the G level. He had lessons every day and was often given meals by Rossi and Dr Abreu. Once, he went to a music shop with Dr Abreu who bought all the clarinet recordings for him, which wasn’t much.  Gathering confidence, he started teaching his own students in 1981 and joined the conservatory for six years. His teaching career didn’t start well – he had 30 students at the beginning of the year, and 0 at the end. He was now the principle clarinettist of the Simon Bolivar A orchestra but he didn’t feel prepared to teach. He studied sonatas and concertos using recordings as Maestro Rossi had returned to Chile. Dr Abreu would always return from abroad with clarinet scores and recordings, and the Venezuela symphonic orchestra came back from tour with clarinets for him.

Now he commissions festivals and runs academies. Many South American countries had clarinet festivals this year and many of his students now teach. He organises an international clarinet festival every two years. His clarinet academy has 9 teachers and the best students in the country. This model has been replicated for all instruments, giving students opportunities outside of their activities playing with the orchestras, with advanced private instruction and a focus on solo repertoire. A lot of the members of the professional orchestras are members of the conservatory and an academy. The students are chosen and auditioned for soloist performance opportunities.

The academies offer a different learning experience to the conservatory. Students are not attached to one teacher but can study with all if they wish, so they can get the best out of all the teachers. In the traditional conservatory model there is rivalry resulting from little interaction among students, and competition amongst teachers. Students don’t belong to one teacher in this model, but to the academy and El Sistema. Valdemar noted that the teachers relearned respect for one another. The brotherhood among teachers created a very different dynamic, and they take different roles teaching sonatas, orchestra solos, and technique for example. If one is unsure of something, they refer onto another teacher and this collaboration creates the bond that all have responsibility for their students.

As to his impressions of Dr Abreu, Valdemar attributes his success as mentor and leader to his honesty, his captivating public speaking, and the confidence he encourages in his students and colleagues; “It is important to have the children believe in themselves”. Finally he mentioned that Dr Abreu would often get the orchestra to play doubly loud and fast to get them to play better; “He loves us but he is also very demanding!”

 

Special Needs Department in Merida

 
The Special Needs department in Merida is not as big and well-resourced as the one in Barquisimeto, nor is there the same reputation and hype around it, but it was incredibly impressive nonetheless. The students gave us a showcase of their ensembles and their best performances, including recorders, percussion band, hand-bells and violins!

The teachers boasted that “in Barquisimeto the students don’t play the melody but they do here!” The violin work was particularly inspiring. A combined violin, percussion and hand-bell ensemble played a medley of Christmas carols interspersed with a narrative. In order to support the violinists, they had coloured in each note on the scores and used coloured bells to help students play the correct notes. They even moved the bells in the correct bow movements to keep the student on the right note. There was also a young blind boy who was very proficient on the hand-bells. They had built a table so that the bells were fixed in an arc around him.

The advanced percussion ensemble has been playing together for five years. The teacher began working with special needs students so that he could interact more with his son, and he remarked on how rewarding it is to be able to play alongside him. He mentioned that students only need to count to four to participate, and other more capable students can work on fitting rhythms in. There is a focus on improving their ability to concentrate, starting and stopping playing together. Two students are also training to be teachers themselves, and they focus on supporting one child.

Merida has its own White Hands Choir too, although it does not have as many members. The director is training a deaf girl to conduct, and parents are more strongly involved in the choir than in Barquisimeto. Indeed, this nucleo seemed to have stronger relationships with parents than we had seen elsewhere. There is a parent’s choir and a parent’s association - some pay 100 Bolivares a month to contribute, but 80% don’t pay anything to participate and El Sistema even pays for their bus tickets to the nucleo.

Other highlights of our Merida trip included a performance of a Pink Floyd and Beatles medley by the Percussion ensemble, and a trip to hear the Brass ensemble perform at the newly opened cable

car.

 

 

Choirs in Merida

At the main nucleo in Merida, I joined a few rehearsals of the Youth Choir (Coro Sinfonico Juvenil) comprised of students in their late teens and early twenties. The standard was that of a high quality university chamber choir rather than your average youth choir, and I recognised many members who are involved in teaching children’s choirs at the smaller nucleos. Indeed, there is a strong connection with the Universidad de Los Andes Music Department as the director teaches choral conducting there and many of the members of the Youth Choir study there. Members receive a stipend for their commitment, and as with the choirs in Barquisimeto, two students led warm-ups in their roles as vocal coaches.

I enjoyed the challenge of sight-reading traditional Venezuelan carols, and already some seemed more than familiar having heard them being sung in other nucleos or in shops, etc. There were so many strong singers around me that I quickly picked up the songs, and the accompanying swaying movements usually started by the tenors! It was an absolute delight being conducted by someone as passionate and inspiring as Argenis, and soon other Fellows came to watch the rehearsals. They especially came to see how he mentored members of the choir as conductors; in one rehearsal he was providing feedback to two girls and two guys as they conducted familiar repertoire. He later commented to us on the importance of training conductors within the ensemble. For example, he said directors must conduct at the eye sight of younger children so they are not only directed but can also be learning how to be conductors.

I was also lucky enough to sing with the choir around the town. This experience showed their ease with performing in different spaces, and interacting with their audience. It seems that Argenis is very much involved in the community, and had arranged concerts in the park and at the shopping centre, and the choir has been to many other settings. The students who are training to be conductors performed their pieces, and the audience and passers-by were encouraged to join in with the well-known Christmas carols.

Although Argenis is teaching at the nucleo, he is not a member of staff there and is affiliated instead with the local university. Clara and I were keen to talk with him about conducting, having been so inspired by watching him work in rehearsals. He made some interesting comments on his experiences working with musicians in El Sistema. He especially mentioned that he has not heard teachers talk about the meaning of the music much; "just play, play, play and an insistence on technique". He is not so keen to sing in Caracas with the other choirs as they do not provide singers with the space to reflect on the meanings of the piece, with vocal technique and sound being more important. "We should look at the fundamental thing being communicated", he explained, "the choir conductor should be a good musician but also a mentor or a priest". We didn’t have the time to really connect with choirs in the Caracas nucleos (they were more anxious to show off the orchestras), and it seems like students interested in focusing on singing in Caracas become a part of one of the Schola Cantorum choirs, compared to the choir cultures we saw in Barquisimeto and Merida.

Merida #5

Santa Cruz

After some time winding through hairy mountain roads, we came to the relatively isolated village of Santa Cruz. From the road we could see a fabulous mural painted along the front of the eight year old nucleo. There is a small staff here including a director and secretary. They have one orchestra of children aged 7-17 years, and students had been playing their instrument for 6 months to 2 years. 250 students attend this nucleo altogether, with a piano studio, orchestra, choir, and early years classes.

We met one of the few non-Venezuelan teachers and one of the few more permanent visitors to the program here. Kyoko Kato from South Korea (KOICA/JICA) is working with the Universidad de Los Andes to help train teachers from village nucleos at the centre of town. She talked to us about the frustrations of feeling far from the main Merida nucleo; the musical culture there, the resources and much larger teaching staff.

Although it was a Friday morning, there were many students at the nucleo. Apparently they had been told that there would be guests and had been excused from school. The full orchestra was set up to welcome us and played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. The children then split up into groups and the Fellows joined them to teach for the rest of the morning.

Beverley and I went with the 6 cellists ranging in age from 7 to late teens; Osiris, Crismar, Wilmer, Ariam, Oriana and Darkis. After a few warm-ups it became obvious that the two youngest players also had the least experience and so I took them to another room to go through the part for Ode to Joy. Crismar had played for 9 months, Osiris for less. We worked for about 30 minutes on this part, when the seven-year old Osiris lost interest and was very concerned about the possibility of missing lunchtime. It felt bizarre to see an El Sistema student lose focus!

After lunch I did some work with the children’s choir, a small group of seven to ten year olds. Again this was a very different experience to the well-disciplined choirs we had visited elsewhere. We played a few warm-up and rhythm games, and I taught them a simple Tanzanian children’s song. Concentration levels were pretty low and I often had to coax students away from whatever distractions there were in the room. One of these distractions was a piano where one of the boys sat down to play and was joined in by the others singing along. It made me think that, with a lack of teaching staff, the students were probably quite used to just hanging out around the piano.

The director of the nucleo gave us some background about the village (population around 1000). A few years ago severe flooding destroyed much of the infrastructure; housing, roads, electricity and quality water supply were affected and there are still many issues which are not getting resolved. We noticed that there was no running water in the kitchen and bathrooms at the nucleo. As a result, according to the director, there is a negative atmosphere in the village. Public school teachers are often ‘not well’ or ‘going to the doctor’, and the nucleo is treated as a babysitting service by families, where discipline has got worse.

I got the impression that life in this village for the students was more unsettling than in other communities we visited. It is more of a challenge to maintain discipline and routine when children are not exposed to it elsewhere in family and school life. Despite its eight years, it appears that the El Sistema culture that we were becoming familiar with is not established here as much as at other nucleos. This sort of situation and the distance from the Merida town centre is an example of the challenges of taking the program to the villages as part of the Simon Bolivar project.

 

 

Merida #4

Ejido

This nucleo is close to Merida town centre, is 4 years old and based in a cultural centre with a stunning mountainous backdrop. We were met by 28 year-old Victor who is the director here and took us on a tour. There are 487 students, of whom 78 are aged 4-6 years. Three times a week students have theory or individual lessons, whilst the orchestra rehearses twice a week in the courtyard. Victor has four admin staff to help run the nucleo.

Various lessons were taking place in different parts of the courtyard. We stopped first at the cuatro ensemble which is part of the Alma Llanera project. 35 children are part of the project in Ejido with 15 being in the ensemble which was started a year half ago. The students gave us an impromptu performance. Afterwards, Ayriole decided to forego the rest of the tour and got some of the students to teach her some chords, which we will all keen to learn from her on the bus trip back to Caracas.

Next was the paper orchestra. We were not there at the right time to observe a rehearsal but instead we saw parents making the instruments and discussed the process: draw around a real instrument to create templates using card, cardboard, and newspaper. Wooden posts are glued inside to help keep the shape, fibres from palm leaves are used for bow hairs, and nylon fishing lines for strings. It takes four months to make it all, and the children learn songs using their instrument in the meantime twice a week in kindergarten classes (4-6 years). Here in Ejido it is obligatory for parents to help make the instrument. There are new kids every four months. Once it is finished, there is an exhibition and a concert with the paper instruments.

Kindermusik: We visited one classroom where a teacher demonstrated some of the activities they do with the younger children - introducing rhythm concepts with body movements in a train game when you walk in different tempo, jump for an accent, stop for rests. They also talked about observing chn to see which instrument they could be most suited too. It was so refreshing again to hear teachers believe in the potential of children being able to play an instrument and that they should give them the opportunity to do so.

After the tour, we heard the story of Victor's journey to becoming a nucleo director at such a young age: “This is our fight” he began by saying. He was a student in El Sistema from the age of 4 to19 years old: he spent 11 years in the National Childrens’ Orchestra (now the Simon Bolivar B Orchestra) as a violist, toured Brazil, Argentinia, Chile, Europe and the US. When the tours were over he stayed in Caracas to continue rehearsing and performing with the orchestra. At the same time he trained as a nutritionalist and a specialist in food processing. He subsequently worked in the nucleo development office for FundaMusical and worked around the country. He finished there in January 2013 after he was asked to come to Merida as part of the Simon Bolivar project, and he became the director of the Ejido nucleo in May.

When asked about how the Simon Bolivar project could be successful, he explained that children join the program because of their curiosity about the musical instruments. They are also drawn to the experience of a different atmosphere at the nucleo than at home. An important role of the nucleo is to provide social support. He mentioned some cases that he had encountered: One student was consistently late for rehearsals and wasn’t allowed back into the orchestra. It turned out that she was late because of domestic issues as her parents didn’t believe she was actually playing but sleeping around. In the end her mother saw her perform at the concert and was amazed by the ability of her own child. Victor's storytelling was so powerful that we were all very moved and Tatjana was emotional whilst translating for us.

He went on to say that El Sistema is changing the lives of children and parents, and he knows that the program is changing hearts successfully because the teachers who have been through the program have all been repaired: "When you feel the power of what you can do with your own hands, you want to do more". The teacher’s purpose is to be a model so the students want to be like you, and this motivates them to behave well; “If they don’t make you feel great they are teaching you nothing” he says. Another piece of advice: "If chn don’t look at you with shining eyes – you’re not doing it right. The students should play with a big heart but having future aspirations of a musical career is not as important. " They must be in general education, however, the program helps place children in school.

Victor could still be playing for the Simon Bolivar Orchestra but he decided to serve others and is now impacting 3000 children, continuing the cycle of teaching others and giving back. His studies in other disciplines have helped him develop organisational abilities, but he ended by bemoaning the fact that El Sistema is the biggest system of music education in the world but you can’t access higher education music studies. It occurred to me that in my experience it is easier to access quality music education at the higher education level than at primary or secondary level in the UK!

 

Return to Caracas #3

After we had finished quizzing the team from the Executive Director's Office, they asked us what our impressions were of El Sistema after three weeks of observing and engaging with the program. Unfortunately I didn't record what I said but it was probably something about teacher training considering that it was my particular obsession at the time. Or maybe praxis...

Ricki: The positive environment - always open to help each other, not to laugh at each other.

Tatjana: There is a need for more integration of Venezuelan music in the program - for example arranging their own music in the nucleo or producing national editions by Fundamusical to that can be made digitally available.

Aubree: The teachers specifically working on bringing passion out of children.

Beverly: The constant innovation and openness to new methods of teaching - teachers often in situations when they need to think outside the box e.g. teaching different levels and instruments.

Frosty: The passion for music creates the motivation to work hard - This is diminished when they are told they can’t do something or teachers overly focus on posture for example. Instead teachers empower students and encourage a relationship with instruments. She was also impressed with Argenis, the director of the Merida Youth Choir training members of choir to conduct.

Hana: Struck by the loud, fast, almost aggressive sound in beginner playing, whereas the more advanced students are more refined and sensitive in their musical expression.

Eriel: The students simply love playing with others, and the social, family experience at the nucleo becomes a huge part of their life. Talent is not a factor or a working concept as teachers believe all can achieve but need to be supported differently.

Roderigo: The students are almost addicted to achievement, and realise that with support you can constantly achieve and seek the challenge of the next step.

Return to Caracas #2

Back at the Centre for Social Action we met up with members of Eduardo Mendez’s team. The Executive Director’s office develops curriculum and music projects. We met with four members of management who are preparing a strategy for developing higher education, and evaluation and assessment in El Sistema. Those we talked to included the Head co-ordinator of projects undertaken by the Executive Director’s office, a statistician and an economist. One of them also was a violinist in the Simon Bolivar. They are part of work groups focusing on updating sequential repertoire and creating new academies and conservatories. Ironically their goal is the systemisation of El Sistema’s programming. They intend to equip a new generation of researchers who will continue to expand and develop the program.

Data Collection

The main objective of this project is to measure the impact of the El Sistema program in Venezuela. They started measuring in 2006/7 but a system wasn’t put in place to organise the data. This has been a very expensive process, there is 39 years’ worth of programming to consider! There have been previous external data collection and evaluations including one compiled by the Inter-American Development Bank in 2007. They also mentioned research published in 2006 (by Jose Fuerte) and also a cost-benefit analysis (a different report to the IDB analysis) showing that the program gives $1.36 back for every $1 invested.

Their aims are:

1) To measure the social and individual impact of the program on children, parents, teachers, and administrative staff through various indicators including self-esteem, psychology, hygiene and health.

2) To record the socio-economic status of children’s families.

The pilot process is expected to finish in 2015: the first study will take place in 4 nucleos, assessment tools and a schedule will be established, and then it will be reproduced on a national level in 2018 with the aim that data collection will be continued. They will be able to see the impact on the development of students after consistent analysis. The data collection process will include questioning all children of all ages and their parents (e.g. income and education background), measuring cognitive skills and reasoning, causal impact, social and individual impact. The research team will be in each nucleo for two weeks collecting data of the current students.

The team mentioned some of the problems that they are facing: Determining what should be the baselines that are they looking for, the lack of internet access in many areas to digitally process data, and how to differentiate the impact of El Sistema from other social programs the students may participate in.

University Institute of Music Studies

The evaluation process will also be designed to inform what will be needed when students reach higher education, so the children selected for the pilot assessment will be those who have experienced as many aspects of the program as possible. The data will be used to create a curriculum to support the existing programs. A higher education institute was created by Dr Abreu in the ‘80s, but it is now that a huge development is under way to use the institute to fill in the gaps in the program.

The team mentioned that other higher education providers in Venezuela are not completely coherent with the philosophy of El Sistema programming. They do however work with the Simon Bolivar Conservatory which is already well established in delivering performance studies, but they wish to use the El Sistema institute to extend educational offerings to students. In this way, they are not so concerned about providing more performance opportunities, concerts, tours, master-classes, etc.

They did mention, however, that there has been some controversy in taking students away from other universities, but there are few universities in Venezuela that offer music studies in further education. Students end up choosing other disciplines although this does have the outcome of graduates having the opportunity to work in other areas and then return to El Sistema with a wider skills base. Providing more opportunities for gaining a Higher Education qualification legitimises a musical career and the music industry, and prevents the brain drain of students going abroad. By having complimentary tracks in teaching and performance students are able to take their own direction in their studies and career choice.

One aspect that appealed to me is the interdisciplinary nature of the courses they wish to offer. They describe the pilot program of music theory, history and composition courses as being holistic and integrated and the curriculum design will aim to present everything as part of the same learning. Perhaps they will link these studies with El Sistema favourites Tchaikovsky’s 4^th and Shostakovich’s 10^th symphonies – the passion for the music is already there having experienced it, and therefore the motivation to learn about them from different angles.

Teacher Training

This is one crucial aspect of programming that doesn’t formally exist yet in El Sistema. The team is working on three strategies to rectify this.

1) Certify teachers who already work in the dynamic of El Sistema, who have been trained by following the example of others in the nucleo and by years of experience. It is hoped that these teachers will be more motivated to continue teaching with the recognition of their skills. Given the huge development of the program that is needed in the next few years under the Simon Bolivar project, there is a huge demand for teachers and they require certification. They have already tried to certify their teachers through other institutions, but now the program needs to be able to certify their own teachers in order to achieve the goals of the project.

2) Develop a teacher training program to compliment the experience gained in the nucleo. This program will address weaknesses and gaps such as assessment and evaluation, teaching methodologies and knowledge, but will not necessarily be completely theoretical. They aim to offer elective courses so students can pick and chose those that are relevant, and to remove the preconception that everyone should teach how they themselves learnt, by introducing new pedagogical methods. The courses will also try to cater for all the musical interests that are reflected in the program, from orchestras and choirs to symphonic rock bands and special needs programming. Their vision is to attract international students to their Inter-American Teacher Training Facility, where the quality of teacher training offered matches the level of performance training that creates the professional musicians of the Simon Bolivar Orchestra.

3) El Sistema has pioneered methods of teaching music to Special Needs students. There is a need for research into the teaching methodologies being used along with collecting teacher and student profiles to assess the program. They intend to gather what is already happening and make it accessible to others, with a view to eventually establishing a national Teacher Training Centre specifically for Special Needs.

Curriculum development

Sequential repertoire documents were created for standardising repertoire in 2010 which has been an important baseline for orchestras and choirs in every nucleo. It is used as a non-mandatory guideline, but the evolution of the program has surpassed the repertoire standards, and expectations are changing constantly as many students are playing repertoire from the next level up. They plan to update these documents to reflect the reality of student progress, whilst not voiding achievements of previous students. In addition they aim to analyse the progress of the new generation of students to inform future curriculum developments.

We wondered whether the program might lose something of its essence in this systemisation and institutionalisation. The team replied by saying that as they have been brought up in El Sistema, it would be hard for them to develop a different approach to music education. These developments that will be based on research and evaluation of what students need will inevitably change our perconceptions of music education at the higher level.