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The Social Classroom of the Teatro Real

Maria Guerrero, founder and CEO of Acción Social por la Música and Blanca Guillén, Music Therapist and Coordinator of the Aula Social

08-02-2019

The Aula Social (Social Classroom) program of the Social Action Foundation for Music of Madrid, Spain, was launched in September 2015, with the active support of the Teatro Real, Madrid’s legendary opera house.  The launch was propelled by an intensive weeklong workshop offered by a team of professionals from the well-known Special Education Program of El Sistema in Venezuela.

Fostering Epic Parents

Anne Campbell, Education Director, Catamount Arts/EPIC Music

07-01-2019

EPIC Music, in St. Johnsbury, VT, was one of four El Sistema-inspired organizations recently invited to partner with a team of Duke University undergraduates to explore parent engagement in El Sistema USA member organizations. Parent engagement is an important goal for us; we have talked for more than a year about offering violin workshops for parents, so that they can understand our students’ challenges and learn how to help their children practice at home.

El Sistema Hong Kong

Melissa Alexandra Niño, Artistic Director and Strings Principal, El Sistema Hong Kong

06-02-2019

El Sistema Hong Kong (ESHK) is a registered charitable institution that since 2017 has provided free-of-charge musical training to people of all ages in difficult social and economic conditions.

Illuminating True Progress for All Students

Reynaldo Ramirez, Program Director, Soundscapes, Newport News,VA

06-01-2019

As a Sistema movement, the two main goals we aspire to are musical growth and social growth. We often use some iteration of the motto “social change through music.” However, it is often hard to show data that supports this. El Sistema-inspired programs tend to more easily keep track of information pertaining to musical growth. They accomplish this through playing tests, juries, and concerts.

The Archipelago Project

Armand Hall, Director of Education, Archipelago Project & Executive/Artistic Director, ROCmusic Collaborative; Daniel Trahey, Executive Director, Archipelago Project & Artistic Director, OrchKids

04-01-2019

The Archipelago Project’s objective is to empower student creativity and ownership by supplying musical knowledge, performance opportunities, and professional models to inspire the next generation of engaged musicians. For the past 15 years, Archipelago Project’s iterative process in curriculum design has resulted in our Musical Leadership Academy, a summer music camp focused on providing a diverse population of students and teaching artists with opportunities to create music together, learn when to lead and to listen, and thrive in the ensemble as a metaphor for community.

Collective Composition

Cecille Elliott, Director of Creative Play, BRAVO Youth Orchestras, Portland, OR

02-01-2019

At BRAVO Youth Orchestras, there are ongoing conversations about the impact of introducing collective composition–composing together as a group–often focusing on how it impacts the staff, our students, and our community, and on what it means to facilitate and support a collective musical voice. There’s an active effort to establish equitable practices that reinforce a supportive environment for BRAVO students during creative projects. BRAVO’s central goal is student empowerment to discover what it is they want to say through their music.

Supporting the Young Artist’s Initiative

Michael Pechter, Director of Play On Philly’s POP Emerging Artist Collective (PEAC)

12-01-2018

This fall marks the second year of an exciting new talent development program at Play On Philly! Our Emerging Artist Collective (PEAC) is a cohort of nearly twenty students who have demonstrated the utmost dedication and whose families have demonstrated the devotion needed for success. Unlike all other Play On Philly students, those in PEAC receive private lessons and advocacy as they navigate Philadelphia’s musical landscape. As director of this program, I work to show them that a life playing music and immersed in music is a true possibility for them.

El Sistema Opera Mediterranee: The First All-Opera Sistema Program

Serge Monterisi, Cofounder, El Sistema Opéra Méditerranée

10-27-2018

Opera is one of the most complex accomplishments of our Western musical heritage, mixing vocal and instrumental musical with poetry, theater and visual arts.  In our times, freed from many elitist clichés, it can come back to its primal source and be experienced as a very popular form of artistic expression. Its mix of singing and acting, of costumes and lightings, can be a great attraction for young people, who can play and enjoy as they learn from the operatic experience.

French Government Gives Teens Money for Arts and Culture Experiences

09-10-2018

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.

Batuta’s “Music at the Borders”

09-02-2018

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). 

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