Destacado

In my small Portuguese village of Pousos, between the giant waves of Nazaré and the Shrine of Fátima, we had a community band. I joined at age 8, playing flugelhorn. I’m forever grateful for this decision, which launched a life in music. But it wasn’t until years later, when I served as the director of several conservatories, that I began asking why it took so long to get started.

HEAL grew out of Usanii Village Africa‘s previous work with young people, including more than 50 girls and boys whose experiences helped shape the program. Since 2021, Usanii Village Africa has worked to empower young people across Uganda through the arts. In designing HEAL, we wanted to explore how the arts could engage young people in uncomfortable conversations, helping them develop leadership and communication skills while exploring adolescent health and gender equality.

There are seasons in any movement. The beginning, that electric moment when a new idea catches fire, is unforgettable. So is the end, when a movement gains a permanent foothold in society. But the middle—the developing stage—is different. The middle is where the path is no longer clear, where the just cause and the strategies for seeing it through are both tested. It’s my impression that, in many places of the world, El Sistema-inspired programs find themselves in that adolescent stage.

These growing years are critical to our future as a movement—just as the adolescent years are critical to our students’ growth. Here are a few discoveries being made by U.S. programs I’m familiar with, shared with the hope that they resonate with programs around the world.

Like many organizations across Europe, El Sistema Greece draws part of its support from European Union programs. While our work has always focused on music and social change, we’ve recently partnered with organizations beyond the music sector to explore something broader: “artivism” across different art forms. This collaboration led to the launch of a new project, co-funded with the EU and dedicated to empowering young people, especially those with fewer opportunities.

In the winter of 2013, Project: Music Heals Us Founder Molly Carr shattered a glass bowl into her left hand on the eve of her concert tour, halting her performing career. In the months that followed, she enrolled in a nursing aide course through the American Red Cross and was assigned to work with Ruth, a late-stage Alzheimer’s patient who, staff warned her, hadn’t spoken in years. The advice she received was practical: get in, get the job done, harden yourself to the screams, and get out.

She knew that the care and attention all people need required something more. So she sat down, held Ruth’s hand in silence, and Ruth, the woman who had not spoken in years, turned and began speaking in complete sentences.

Molly came back every day of that residency. On the last day, she promised Ruth that she would return, and bring her viola next time.

About 15 years ago, when I was on tour in Africa, I was lucky enough to meet the late Bob Collymore, Founder/CEO of Safaricom Kenya and one of the most inspiring people on the planet. I performed at the Safaricom headquarters for all the employees; Bob was immediately enthusiastic about bringing more jazz to Nairobi, and he decided to launch the Safaricom International Jazz Festival. He organized the festival setup, and I helped him with the programming.

What does visual art have to do with listening?

It’s an unusual question—but one that’s well worth exploring, as I discovered recently when I attended Sguardi Paralleli (Parallel Glances) – Art Therapy and Autism: Art as Language, an exhibition held in Alassio, Italy and curated by art therapist Carla Paura.

Since 2014, the Goede Hoop Marimba Band has operated in Boksburg, Gauteng, a small South African town in the smallest South African province. The band started in 2014 at the Goede Hoop Primary School, the hub where all practice takes place, as a way of keeping children out of the streets after school, committing them to something that could positively impact their future, and strengthening their community bonds.

Since the inception of the Sistema Europe Youth Orchestra in 2012, our international network has created SEYO summer camps every two or three years, bringing young people together from different countries for a week of rehearsing and performing together. It’s an exciting tradition!—and its only downside is the restlessness of the participating members…during the “off” years, when camps don’t take place. 

When we first designed the Dream Orchestra in 2010, we saw “isolation” as one of the most urgent conditions in children’s lives. At the time, the intensity of college entrance competition had already reached elementary school, and many children were being pushed into highly competitive, lonely environments.

Fifteen years later, children’s lives have not become easier. They remain caught in the competitive trap of the education system while social and economic inequality continues to deepen their vulnerability. Declining physical and mental wellbeing, weakened community ties, and the replacement of direct relationships with media-based activities have also left them increasingly disconnected.