BlogAs Soundscapes nears closer to the start of the Fall program, I have been reflecting on my experiences over the summer in Venezuela. While searching through the many videos that I took while I was there, I ran across this impromptu interview with El Sistema Horn student Gustavo Gonzalez. I thought that he really hit the nail on the head in describing what El Sistema is and what it has done for him.
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Brass, Percussion, Bells and Choir!
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20-07-2010
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. Tocar y Luchar
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12-07-2010
"Tocar y Luchar" translated to English is "To Play and to Fight". This is El Sistema´s widely known motto. I have heard the motto for several years and thought I understood it from watching the 60 minutes video and several other documentaries...even one call Tocar y Luchar. It one thing to see it on TV....but it is a totally different thing to see it in person. It Begins!
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08-07-2010
 I arrived in Carracas on Tuesday, July 6th, with just a little worry. I knew that I was meeting our host Roberto Zambrano, Acarigua-Araure nucleo director, but I didn’t have his number nor did I have the address of where we were staying. Once I got off the airplane and past customs there was Roberto waiting for me (and two others who were also on my flight). I instantly new that I was in safe hands! Since it was about 10pm and Acarigua was 5 hours away, we stayed in Carracas for the night. The hotel was right across from the now famous Teatro Carino, where the main administrative head quarters as well as the Simon Bolivar Orchestras reside. Although we didn’t have time to visit it, Roberto is trying to see if might be able to return to Carracas by plane to have a chance to see the building and maybe even meet Maestro Abreu, the founder of El Sistema, if time allows. On Wednesday we journeyed for 5 hours through the beautiful mountains of Venezuela until we finally got to the region of Los Llanos, which is a plains region of Venezuela. We had a very quick hotel checkin and headed over to a recreation center where the orchestra was about to begin afternoon rehearsals. Heading to the Source - El Sistema
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01-07-2010
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! |
