Editorials

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

Tricia Tunstall

08-01-2018

We’re ten years old!

2008 saw the beginning of most of our oldest programs, including OrchKids in Baltimore, the Harmony Program in New York City, and Orchestrating Diversity in St. Lous. YOLA began in 2007…but its first rehearsal with Gustavo Dudamel was in 2008. So I think we’re safe to consider this year the tenth anniversary of our emergence as a national movement.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

07-01-2018

“Cell phones and social media.”

That was the succinct answer I got from a Sistema teacher I spoke with recently, when I asked her why she said her job is getting harder, not easier. She added, “And this year, it’s really ramped up; the problem is worse than it’s ever been.”

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

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.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

05-01-2018

In this issue, we are taking the unprecedented (for us) step of adding a third page. We decided that a third page was necessary to honor and to mourn Draylen Mason, a young bass player and student leader in the Austin Soundwaves program who was killed last month. We also decided that the Action of the Month should be a symbolic action of mourning by all programs.

From the Editors

Tricia Tunstall

04-01-2018

On March 24th, as I worked on putting this issue together, I listened to a live stream of the rally in Washington, D.C. I heard young person after young person speaking truth to power about their lived experiences of gun violence. And another voice was suddenly present in my head, more seasoned but still resonating with the urgent aspiration of the young people’s voices. “Put a violin in the hands of a child,” said that voice, “and the child will not pick up a gun.”

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

03-01-2018

Many of us know by heart this quote from José Antonio Abreu’s televised TED talk in 2009: “Orchestra and chorus are much more than artistic structures; they are schools of social life, because to play and sing together means to intimately coexist toward perfection and excellence.”

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

02-01-2018

Every gathering of music educators gets amped up when, at long last, the kids play. The ESUSA symposium last weekend was no exception. After two days of talks and workshops, we gathered in a concert hall to hear actual students – from Durham’s Kidznotes, Baltimore’s OrchKids, and Chicago’s CHIMOP – actually make music.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

01-01-2018

“Good job!”

As teachers – especially as teachers with a central goal of helping students develop self-esteem – how many times a day do we say that to kids? In my private teaching practice, I too say it often. When a child works hard, plays well, and looks expectantly at me, it’s almost reflexive.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

12-01-2017

A U.S. El Sistema program made some national headlines this month: YOLA, the youth orchestra program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, will be getting a new music center designed by Frank Gehry. Gehry is the celebrity architect responsible for Walt Disney Hall, the L.A. Phil’s famously fantastical concert hall. The YOLA center, at 17,000 square feet, will allow the program to double its participants within the next five years.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

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?

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