El Sistema
El Sistema, officially National Network of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela is a publicly financed, voluntary sector music-education program, founded in Venezuela in 1975 by Venezuelan educator, musician, and activist José Antonio Abreu. The curriculum is built on the belief that the collective playing of music, especially orchestral and choral, fosters discipline, teamwork, and social integration.
The program has a reputation for rescuing young people in impoverished circumstances, directing them away from lives of drug abuse and crime, into which they would possibly otherwise be drawn. El Sistema has inspired similar programmes in more than 60 other countries.
By 2015, according to official figures, El Sistema included more than 400 music centers and 700,000 young musicians.
The institution's closeness to the government has caused the perception that the institution and conductor and alumnus Gustavo Dudamel serve as propaganda instruments of Nicolás Maduro's government.
Origin and history
El Sistema began under the leadership of José Antonio Abreu with 11 students in an underground parking garage. For many years, its official name was Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela,, translated into English as "National Network of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela." The organizations has since changed its name to Fundación Musical Simón Bolívar, but is still widely known by the FESNOJIV acronym.Abreu's vision
Abreu said that "music has to be recognized as an agent of social development in the highest sense because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion," crediting it with the ability to "unite an entire community and express sublime feelings." Thus, children begin playing in groups the moment they pick up an instrument. This instant immersion is the most remarkable feature of their music education system. Students are learning to be part of a group and discover music at the same time. The original program involves four after-school hours of musical training and rehearsal each week, plus additional work on the weekends. El Sistema-inspired programs provide what the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies describes as "free classical music education that promotes human opportunity and development for impoverished children."Abreu received the National Music Prize for his work in 1979 and became Minister of Culture in 1983. In 1995, Abreu was appointed Special Ambassador for the Development of a Global Network of Youth and Children Orchestras and Choirs by UNESCO. He also became a special representative for the development of orchestras within the framework of UNESCO's "World Movement of Youth and Children Orchestras and Choirs."
Abreu led the program for nearly four decades with the backing and material support of seven consecutive Venezuelan governments, ranging across the political spectrum from center-right to the current leftist presidency of Nicolás Maduro. Abreu has been "careful to keep El Sistema separate from partisan politics".
Play and fight
Since 1975, "Tocar y Luchar" has been the motto of El Sistema and its nationwide system of youth orchestras. Referring to the many challenges during the early phases of the program, it expresses its members' determination and commitment to El Sistema as a vital and critical project, both musically and socially.Venezuelan government involvement
The Venezuelan government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez began fully financing Abreu's orchestra after its success, in 1976, at the "International Festival of Youth Orchestras" in Aberdeen, Scotland. From the beginning, El Sistema came not under the ministry of culture, but under the umbrella of social-services ministries, which has strategically helped it survive. The current Maduro administration has been El Sistema's most generous patron so far, covering almost its entire annual operating budget, as well as additional capital projects.At the time, its network of 102 youth and 55 children's orchestras came under the supervision of the Ministry of Family, Health and Sports. A goal of El Sistema is to use music for the protection of children through training, rehabilitation, and prevention of criminal behavior.
In September 2007, with Abreu present on the television talk-show, Aló Presidente, Hugo Chávez announced a new government program, Misión Música, designed to provide tuition and music instruments to Venezuelan children. It has been noted that "various ministries oversaw El Sistema until two years ago, when the president's office took direct control. El Sistema's mission runs parallel to Mr. Chávez's program to provide subsidies and services to the poor."
The institution's closeness to the government has caused the perception that the institution and the orchestra serve as a propaganda instrument of Nicolás Maduro's government.
The National Center for Social Action for Music
Since 2011, El Sistema has operated in the National Center for Social Action for Music in Caracas, a modern structure that has various spaces distributed in musical instruction areas, instrumental rehearsal and choral practice rooms; in addition to a library, recording booths, dressing rooms, cafeterias, administrative and health services. Among the areas open to the public, the large Simón Bolívar Room stands out, with a capacity of 1,100 people and equipped with a large tubular organ donated by the Polar Foundation; in addition to a theater, chamber music rooms and an outdoor acoustic shell, located in the southern area of the building, which is part of Los Caobos Park; as well as musical instrument manufacturing workshops and a space for the "Inocente Carreño" National Audiovisual Music CenterSpread of regional centres in Venezuela
On 6 June 2007, the Inter-American Development Bank announced a US$150 million loan for the construction of seven regional centers of El Sistema throughout Venezuela. Many bankers within the IDB originally objected to the loan on the grounds that classical music is for the elite. But then the bank has conducted studies on the more than 2,000,000 young people, educated in El Sistema, linking participation in the program to improvements in school attendance and reduction in juvenile delinquency and crime rates. Weighing such benefits, the bank calculated that every dollar invested in El Sistema was reaping about $1.68 in social dividends. Supported by the government, El Sistema started introducing its music program into the public-school curriculum, aiming to be in every school and to support 500,000 children by 2015.A 2022 investigation by investigative platform Connectas, with the help of the International Center for Journalists, concluded that the regional centers funded by the IDB were never built and the bank's long-term project to decentralize El Sistema had failed.
Simon Bolivar Orchestra
An important product of El Sistema is the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra.In the mid-1990s, Abreu formed the National Children's Youth Orchestra, and many young musicians graduated from it to the Simón Bolívar which grew considerably in size. This became an opportunity to re-create the ensemble as two separate performing entities. The first generation of members was designated the Simón Bolívar A; the younger, newer members, who had recently been brought in from the new National Children's Orchestra, now constituted the Simón Bolívar B" The Simón Bolívar B is now the touring orchestra and, in 2007, made its debut at the BBC Proms in London's Royal Albert Hall and later at Carnegie Hall under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, receiving enthusiastic reviews. 2009 saw the orchestra touring in the US, but also in Europe as well.
In the spring of 2010, however, a tour to the Lucerne Easter Festival drew comments from reviewers, such as Tom Service of London's The Guardian, that the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra was "youthful no longer." This struck home, and Abreu decided, as he put it, "the time is once again ripe for new, younger national orchestras." And so, he set about creating new ensembles. The Teresa Carreño Symphony Youth Orchestra, named after the famous Venezuelan pianist, started international touring in the autumn of 2010 with appearances at the Beethovenfest in Bonn, followed by Vienna, Berlin, Salzburg Festival, Milan, Amsterdam, Madrid, and London. Other new youth orchestras include the Caracas Symphony Youth Orchestra and a newly constituted National Children's Orchestra consisting of 358 musicians.
2017 protests
On 3 May 2017, 18-year-old El Sistema violist Armando Cañizales was killed when he was shot by a spherical metallic projectile by security forces while participating in a demonstration in Caracas. Conductor Gustavo Dudamel condemned Nicolás Maduro's response to the protests for the first time the day after the killing, writing in social media: "I raise my voice against violence and repression. Nothing can justify bloodshed. Enough of ignoring the just clamor of a people suffocated by an intolerable crisis."Violinist participated in the protests and played his instrument. On 24 May, a National Guardsman officer ripped and broke Arteaga's violin. His images crying over the violin went viral, and several people offered to give him a violin to replace the broken one, including singers Oscarcito, Chyno Miranda and Marc Anthony, flutist Huáscar Barradas and former baseball player Melvin Mora.
Arteaga was imprisoned in July for 19 days on charges of public instigation and possession of incendiary substance. During his detention he was transferred four times and subjected to torture. When he was arrested, security forces burned his hair with a lighter for having very long hair. He was beaten with sticks and helmets when he was transferred to Fort Tiuna, and before arriving at the last prison, he was hit in the back of the head with a metal tube, causing him internal bleeding and leaving him deaf in his right ear. During his detention he denounced that he witnessed how they raped a young woman detained on top of him inside an armoured vehicle.
As he had no violin in prison, Arteaga decided to sing, with other prisoners asking him for songs, especially vallenatos. He spent most of his prison time in an octagonal cell in the General Command of the National Guard in Caracas, where there were about 14 prisoners. In prison he had no possibility to write, as it was forbidden to receive or send letters, there were no visitors, and the prisoners were isolated and without ventilation. Even so, Arteaga composed the song "Cárcel de libertad" along with his best friend Aarón, who had also been detained.
Clarinetist Karen Palacios signed in favor of the referendum organized by the opposition led National Assembly. She was later notified that her contract with the Philharmonic Orchestra was canceled because her political position was not convenient for the orchestra. Palacios denounced the incident on her Twitter account and it went viral. The clarinetist started to receive attacks and threats on social networks and during that year's protests her tweets began to be cited, where she expressed anger at the situation and at the abuse of the security forces. Later, on 1 June 2019, Karen would be detained by officials from the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence and charged with the crime of instigation to hatred. She was detained in the National Institute for Female Orientation, in Los Teques, Miranda state, and confined to a highly dangerous cell, despite having a release order dated from 18 June. In court, her mother was asked not to make her daughter's case public because "it was going to be resolved soon." Palacios was released on 16 July 2019.