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A Missive from the Field: Musical Growth and Joy in Papua New Guinea

Maestro Jesús Briceño, Music Director, Queen of Paradise Orchestra

02-01-2023

As Music Director, I was most impressed by the way students from each section were able to take turns teaching, conducting, and helping the group perfect the repertoire prior to the Christmas concert. For more than a month, older students worked patiently with younger, newer students, imparting their experience and knowledge. This says a great deal about the transformational effects of the Sistema model in the places where it grows.

Authentic Assessments: Prioritizing the Whole Student

Diogo Pereira, Founder and Executive Director, Harmony Project Phoenix

02-01-2023

Authentic assessments are projects that engage students in their own learning journeys and can be implemented by all ages and classes in the program throughout the academic school year. At the Harmony Project Phoenix, these authentic assessments focus particularly on Autonomy, Creativity, and Empathy. For example, in the Empathy assessment, students lead the project, with teachers serving as facilitators.

Stories, Not Statistics: Fact-Checking the Impact of Nairobi’s Ghetto Classics

Ginanne Brownell, author and journalist, London, U.K.

02-01-2023

I had to come to terms with the idea that some stories would have to be taken at face value, and then figure out how to present them so that readers would understand they were based on what I was told, not on what I could actually verify. Although many stats didn’t exist, just being at a rehearsal on a given Sunday could make even the biggest cynics question their critiques.

FOJI: Growing Orchestras across Chile

Miguel Farías, Executive Director, Fundación de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Chile (FOJI)

01-04-2023

Chile is a unique country. Its territories are incredibly diverse, from the driest desert (Atacama) to the mountainous, brisk lands at the continent’s southernmost point (Magallanes, Aysén). This adds a layer of complication to our work at Fundación de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Chile (FOJI), where we strive to make it possible for musicians in every region to participate in ensemble music performance—even if it requires multi-day trips by sea, land, and air.

Raising Refugee Voices at the Tumaini Festival

Thandi Dyani, Network Organizer, BMW Foundation Africa Region, and Trésor Mpauni, Founder, The Tumaini Festival

01-04-2023

At first, the participation of the refugee community was meager, because the idea of a festival in a refugee camp was almost inconceivable. After the first one, however, the community got a sense of what a festival is like and what possibilities and opportunities might come from it. News of the festival started spreading all over Malawi and abroad.

Teaching Mutual Understanding and Peace: The United World Colleges

Graciela Briceno, Education Officer, U.S. Agency for International Development; Founder, Boston Music Project

01-04-2023

What if there were an option for students—even those who could not afford additional years of school—to continue their “social development through music” journey? As it happens, there is one: United World Colleges (UWC), a consortium of higher education institutions that prioritizes—as does our field—peace, collaboration, and mutual understanding.

Scotland Choir Removes Barriers to Build Community

Cathy Phillips Brady, Music Development Officer, University of Glasgow; Global Leaders Project alumna

01-04-2023

In Edinburgh’s iconic Usher Hall, the Love Music Community Choir is knocking down walls. Cofounded in 2006 by professional composer and educator Stephen Deazley, Scotland’s ambitious community singing program is now some 330 members strong—the nation’s largest community choir.

Seeds of a Music Program Sprout in Congo

Irismer Kasamira, violinist; Founder, El Sistema Congo

12-07-2022

In 2021, I started doing online research about great violinists, recorder players, and orchestras. On Facebook, I came across a gentleman named Roberto Zambrano, a great musician and educator and a good person. I said to myself: “I have just found someone with whom to share my ideas.”

Building Continual Improvement into Our Teaching

José Ángel Salazar Marín, conductor; Artistic Director, El Sistema Greece; AIM FAR Lab Leader, and Eric Booth, Cofounder, The Ensemble; leadership team, AIM (Academy for Impact through Music)

12-07-2022

Action research is widely used in professional research, but unlike most academic research methodology, action research doesn’t stand back and wait for non-practitioners to deliver findings. Action research is led by the people inside the work, with ongoing hypotheses, experiments, and discoveries leading to improved practice along the way.

Because They Can: A Youth Orchestra in Canada Takes on Mahler

Katie McDermitt, Indianapolis flutist and educator; President, Board for El Sistema Indianapolis; GLP alumna

12-07-2022

Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony “Titan” is a famously formidable work. This four-movement composition by one of Austria’s greatest composers lasts almost an hour, requiring performers to have endurance as well as musical skill. Performances of Mahler 1 are generally done by professional and university-level musicians—until now. In June 2025, the musicians of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra (NBYO), the youth orchestra of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, will embark on a summer-long tour of Canada during which they will perform Mahler’s Symphony No. 1.

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