Opinion

 
The Ensemble seeks to connect and inform all people who are committed to ensemble music education for youth empowerment and social change.

A Social Skills Curriculum

08-01-2018

Sistema Toronto is in its second year of a three-year project dedicated to building a detailed and integrated curriculum focused on musical and social learning outcomes for its 250 students, aged 6-12. The music curricula components include music and moment, strings, choir, and percussion. We are also creating an integrated social curriculum, developed by a team of our teachers and rooted in experiential learning pedagogy, that is intended to be woven into teaching and learning outcomes for all music classes.

Music Therapy & Sistema

07-01-2018

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Around the Sistema World with Hannah

06-27-2018

I was fifteen years old. It was the summer of 2012. My dad and I were making the sixteen hour drive up to Interlochen Arts Camp, and I was surfing the web on my iPhone. I began browsing TED talks, when one caught my eye: “The El Sistema music revolution”. For the next seventeen minutes, I sat in awe listening to José Antonio Abreu discuss his founding of a program that changed lives through music. As Maestro Abreu explained the program of social rescue, its structure, and the cultural impact that it has on the people of Venezuela, I grew more and more captivated by the model.

From the Editor

06-01-2018

A recent article in the academic journal JAMA Pediatrics, on the subject of teaching students self-regulation, bears the subtitle “A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” – a phrase so densely academic that I almost stopped reading right there. But I’m glad I didn’t. There’s some important good news here for Sistema programs.

FEATURE: The Americas Take On Collaborative Composition: A Right Answer to the Hard Questions

05-24-2018

It’s even more important than I thought.  The Ensemble and The World Ensemble have published positive pieces in the past about the Collaborative Composition (CC) work that Dan Trahey leads with other teaching artists in support, but this was the first time I witnessed most of the full process.  It is educationally and artistically powerful, and bursting with potential for the El Sistema-inspired movement.

Get Comfortable……Being Uncomfortable

02-01-2018

What a great opportunity it was to be together with over 100 leaders, teachers, students, and curious individuals this past weekend at the El Sistema USA first-ever symposium. You could feel the excitement, energy, and buzz around Duke University as we took over the Nelson Music Room with live performances, slideshows, and plenary presentations. I believe some of our plenaries really gave space for people to think, reflect, and then hopefully plan a course of action.

From the Editor

11-01-2017

Our issue this month features collaborative initiatives between programs that are Sistema-inspired or similarly oriented. The U.S. Sistema ecosystem is beginning to see more such collaborations, of varying degrees of formality and longevity. Often, the first impulse toward collaboration comes easily; it’s later that questions can arise. How are decisions made? Do programs need to agree on everything? How much can they diverge and still be part of the joint enterprise?

From the Editor

10-01-2017

The first nationwide research about El Sistema-inspired programs in the United States: are we paying enough attention to this?

We should be paying a lot of attention. Rigorous independent research at 12 sites across the country, with many hundreds of students involved – this is a big deal. It gives us a new way to understand and reflect on what we’ve accomplished and where we need to go from here. The researchers themselves are ideal partners; WolfBrown is respected for its meticulous standards and commitment to the arts, and the Longy School of Music is a leader among conservatories in its tenacious emphasis on community-based arts teaching and learning.

Framing “Classical” Music in Racial Equity Contexts

09-01-2017

Calling orchestral or so-called classical music “white music” isn’t a framing that fits comfortably around many folks’ practice. This is particularly true for ALAANA (African, Latino/a, Asian, Arab, Native American) practitioners or those who teach ALAANA students. I get that on a personal level.

José Antonio Abreu: A Remembrance and Celebration

01-02-2016

I was in a car on Saturday, March 24th, when in highly Venezuelan fashion, I was texted through WhatsApp with the sad news.  Maestro Abreu had passed.  My knee-jerk reaction was a professional reflex, one honed after many years in Maestro’s office:  confirm the news, get the facts, make a plan, offer assistance… For the rest of the ride, I was furiously typing and calling making sure the information was handled correctly and in as respectful a fashion as he merited.  The sniffling and tears were set aside; there was work to be done.

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