the world ensemble

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.

The Turkish Sistema program Barış İçin Müzik (Music for Peace) inaugurated our third site in November 2016, in Adalar (also known as the Prince Islands), an archipelago off the coast of Istanbul. With the support of Adalar City Council, we began the new site with 25 children on stringed instruments.

The Philippines-based Orchestra of the Filipino Youth (OFY) made its Middle East debut last month.

Registration is now open for the 2019 El Sistema Academy in Stockholm, Sweden!  The 3rd annual El Sistema Academy will take place at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm on 25-27 January 2019.

On Saturday, 27 October, Sistema in Norwich, England teamed up with a circus!

Watch a moving 4-minute tribute to Jose Antonio Abreu by Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra, who was invited many times by Maestro Abreu to guest-conduct the Simon Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela.

Xiquitsi is celebrating its fifth anniversary, and is using the marker to share its work with a wider audience and public, in its home of Mozambique and in other countries.  They have had a five concert series in this celebratory year—an ambitious expansion of their previous concert offerings.  This anniversary year has been one of new accomplishments.  

Students from Ghetto Classics in Nairobi have created a new music video that you can view below. For this video, students partnered with SAWA, an organization that partners with local Kenyan women to make beaded decorations for technology like headphones (which can be seen in the film). 

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

El Sistema is excited to announce the appointment of Maestro David Ascanio as the new Director of the Simón Bolívar Conservatory of Music.