I must say, I have never been a great fan of blogging.  Most of the blogs in my profession, seem to go on forever and I windup losing interest or life interupts and I never complete the post.  So, I intend to keep the blogs short enough that you get a gist of what I would like to communicate without falling asleep (hey you...wake up!)

I am the Program Director for Soundscapes, which is an after-school youth development program that uses music to build life skills through quality music making.  The program is largely inspired by the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra system commonly known as El Sistema.  For those of you that have not seen the 60 minutes video on this, you must see it! (click here)  

My knowledge of El Sistema has been gained through media, colleagues and through a program that I worked with at the Baltimore Symphony.  All of this has inspired me to take action and has led me to specify my work by giving children the experience of learning, playing and being effected by the power of music.  I have always known the effect that music has had on me and have always had the goal of sharing music’s benefits to others, but when I was exposed to El Sistema...it kick-started me into action.  This is when I called Soundscapes' co-founder, Anne Henry, who had already been working on starting a program in Newport News, VA to see if we could join forces.  What has resulted, has been a truly inspirational journey for me.  Soundscapes staff and I have been working with fifty 1st graders at Carver Elementary in Newport News and have begun to see a profound change in attitude, discipline, focus and communication!

 

All of this has come from just the knowledge and inspiration of El Sistema, but now I am finally going to be able to see El Sistema first-hand.  From July 6th through the 18th I will be in Venezuela working within a nucleo (center) that serves the cities of Acarigua-Araure.  I will be there teaching horn and helping the nucleo host a festival that will have students from across the Los Llanos region of Venezuela.  I have been told that the orchestra will consist of approximately 100 students.  I have met the nucleo director, Roberto Zambrano, before and I look forward to learning more about the organization’s mission, his personal mission and get a look at the ins and outs of how he runs his nucleo.  

Through this blog I hope to share my experiences and knowledge gained while in Venezuela.  With all the inspiration that I have gained living vicariously through professional symphony orchestra colleagues, the Abreu Fellows, and through other media, I hope that these series of post will inspire you to take action, whether that is by supporting programs that do this type of work financially or by volunteering or even by starting more programs.  There is no shortage of people that can reap the benefits of music making.

 

Enjoy!