My trip has ended but my blogs will continue...I found that it was very hard to keep a blog while actually working with El Sistema.  There was so much going on that I had very little time to sit down and write.  

As you know, I had been working with the full brass section and on about the 5th day of the festival we were given the challenge to put together a brass ensemble and a percussion ensemble concert.  The students jumped head first towards the challenge!  I now know that at first I underestimated their eagerness to play the concert.  Apparently some of them already had a similar challenge in Barquisimeto, where U.S. horn player Eli Epstien visited and put together a great concert...so the bar was already set high!  At first, I was only going to program one full brass piece and have several intermediate level brass pieces, but I quickly found out that just wouldn’t do....they wanted more of a challenge.  

We ended up playing two full brass ensemble pieces.  I also wanted everyone intermediate level and above to have a small ensemble experience so I chose an intermediate brass quintet for the younger players, and for the older players, we choose a difficult arrangement of Holst’s Jupiter from the Planets.. The trombones formed a quartet and picked out two pieces, one a traditional renaissance style piece and then a traditional Venezuelan piece.  In addition, three of the horn players and I played a horn quartet arrangement of The Marriage of Figaro. 

 

Although they were playing some really great literature in orchestra, it wasn’t too heavy for the brass, so this concert was a welcome diversion for all of us.  I wish we had one or two more days to refine some of the ensemble playing, but this is how music goes.  You only have the time that it takes to get to the concert...nothing more or nothing less.

The point of seminario isn't just the quality of the final performance, it does matter though, it was the process, and the students hunkered down and worked hard to prepare their 40 minute portion of what turned out to be a 3 hour plus concert.  The students did produce a good concert, there were some "iffy" places, but over all, the fact that they played all that music in such a short amount of time is awesome! (not to mention also preparing the music for the orchestral concert)

Here are the videos of the brass performance:

 

Full Ensemble Works:

 

 

Trombone/Tuba Quartet

 

 

 

 

Horn Quartet

 

 

Brass Quintets:

 

 

 

In addition to the brass’ portion of the concert, there were performances from other groups that were in the seminario as well.  The percussion section performed two intricate ensemble pieces conducted by Bostonian Karli Mason and then the percussion section had some more popular selections that followed....including the theme to James Bond.

While the orchestra was in seminario at the social club, there was another seminario going on at the Acarigua-Araure Nucleo.  This seminario was for the younger students singing in choir and playing in bell choir.  The nucleo has a young special needs program and Roberto Zambrano, the nucleo director, has done an awesome job with this program in such a short amount of time.  

The bell choir is partly made up of students with special needs, including Down Syndrome, mental deficiencies and others.  The instructors spent their time teaching them two songs.  If you have ever played in a bell choir, you know that it can be very difficult, because you are only playing one or two notes in a musical line.  From the video below, you can definitely see the concentration that they are putting into the music making...I am not a doctor, but this has to be beneficial to them!  They ended up opening that nights concert, and received a standing ovation for the great work they did!

The choir was also accompanied by a special needs component called Manos Blancos, which translates to White Hands.  Manos Blancos is made up of students that have hearing or speaking deficiencies.  Their movements are choreographed to highlight the music and they use white gloves...hence the name.  They also performed at the concert with raging success.  Here is a video of a rehearsal at the Acarigua-Araure nucleo.

Now that my trip has ended, I hope to be able to catch you up on everything that happened while I was there and share some of my reflections of what I have learned.