Gather Together

The 12th annual Festival of Books and Culture  was recently held in Medellín, Colombia.

The Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) with The Klarman Family Foundation kick off the second cohort of the META Fellowship this month.  The term stands for Music Educators and Teaching Artists, and it is a two year professional development program for about 60 Fellows, including faculty from Sistema-inspired programs in the state.

Each Saturday, nearly one hundred young people from all corners of the Philippines come together for a day of music-making with the Orchestra for Filipino Youth (OFY) at the Rockwell Business Center in Metro Manila. Even though some students have to catch early morning boats in order to get there—as early as 5 o’clock sometimes—the musicians are prepared and attentive come the downbeat at 10.

“For the National Batuta Foundation in Colombia, the international exchange of its participants in different music training programs around the world represents a unique opportunity to provide new knowledge, break mental boundaries, and generate hope for a better future within the brightest young musicians of Batuta.  It is, therefore, a mechanism that promotes meaningful social mobility and generates fully cultural citizens,” commented Para María Claudia Parias Durán, Executive President of the National Batuta Foundation.

Read an inspiring interview with Joseph Jones.  He’s a multi-instrumental musician, composer, conductor, and the founder of the Orchestra Amadeus, whose mission is to promote social justice through classical music.

How do you design, fund, and lead a great community arts project?  If you live in New Zealand, or want to learn from its example, you now have good answers.

For Sistema teenagers, one of the hurdles to exploring the arts is the cost of tickets.  The French Ministry of Culture has rolled out a new multi-million Euro program intended to reduce that barrier for 18-year-olds across the country.

The Colombian project “Music at the Borders” was created to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of the border areas of the country.  The project is run by the country’s national Sistema program, the National Batuta Foundation, and financed by the Colombian Chancellery within the framework of Colombia’s Plan Fronteras para la Prosperidad (Border Plan for Prosperity). 

The NEOJIBA Youth Orchestra of Bahia, Brazil will embark on its seventh international tour this coming month. Students will perform nine concerts in Italy, Switzerland and France, beginning on 2 September in Torino, and finishing with an already sold-out concert at the Philharmonie de Paris.

At 5am on the 15th of July 2018, 17 members of Ghetto Classics set off from Korogocho destined for Kogelo, in Siaya County, in the Western part of Kenya. Ghetto Classics had been invited to perform with the Kenyan singing sensation Eric Wainaina at the opening ceremony of the Sauti Kuu Foundation – Sports and Recreation Centre.