the world ensemble

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

BLUME Haiti: Building Leaders Using Music Education in Haiti

12-02-2019

BLUME Haiti uses the extraordinary impact of music as a tool to empower musicians throughout Haiti. Responding to urgent needs after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, co-founder Janet Anthony, who has taught in the country since 1996, saw the opportunity for an organization that could facilitate getting instruments and supplies to Haiti to help with rebuilding efforts. Thus, with the help of her colleagues and students, BLUME Haiti was born.

El Sistema Greece Widens Inclusion to Work With Adults

12-02-2019

El Sistema Greece (ESG) was born in 2016 as a project that supports refugee communities through music. We teach violin, viola, cello, French horn, trumpet, percussion, choir and music theory to students aged 6-26, as well as music initiation for the youngest students. In addition to our El Sistema Greece Youth Orchestra, we now have small orchestras in each of the three ESG nucleos in Athens. We have frequent concerts in public spaces, often in the biggest cultural center in Athens, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center.

We Have Work to Do In How We Describe Our Work

12-02-2019

We are experiencing a new kind of revolution in our time. This revolution is not centered solely in politics, technology, or the increasing globalization of our planet—but rather, it features the voices of the next generation, centered in the discourses of all elements of our collective, global future.

Editorial: When the Arrows are Words, Best to Just Let Them In

11-06-2019

It’s that moment that threatens to undo many of us. I had just finished giving a Sistema presentation to the Alliance for Childhood at the European Parliament. It had seemed to go pretty well. And then came the first question; an apparently well-intentioned and gentle lady from Finland looked me straight in the eye, and asked in a low, steely voice, “What do you think about the criticisms of El Sistema?”

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Goes to Govanhill

11-06-2019

In autumn 2019, a collaboration between Sistema Scotland, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and Holyrood Secondary School brought about a unique residency. For a few days in early October, the BBC SSO, Scotland’s oldest orchestra, decamped from their prestigious base of operations at the City Halls in Glasgow to a school in Govanhill, a neighborhood on the south side of the city. This was not the BBC SSO’s first community-based residency; however, it was one of its largest ones, with over 80 musicians participating over the four days.

A Mexican Village Hosts an International Music Festival

11-06-2019

The Naolinco International Music Festival (Festival Internacional de Música Naolinco) is an annual summer music festival that takes place in the municipality of Naolinco, Veracruz, Mexico. The motto of the festival roughly translates to “the project that will gather all.” This motto expresses the idea that music can be a factor in bringing people together in order to work towards a common goal. The festival has become a project that goes beyond music making—it is a project for social change, since it gives people an opportunity to be united around a music project that now the community has embraced as its own.

Child’s Play (India) Foundation enters the double digits!

11-06-2019

The Child’s Play (India) Foundation is an organization that seeks to instill positive values and provide social empowerment to India’s disadvantaged children, through the teaching of classical music at the highest possible standards. We are celebrating our 10th year of working with children in Goa, a state in western India.

The Global Leaders Plant a Musical Seed in Tlaxcala, Mexico

10-02-2019

Tlaxcala, located in the heart of Mexico, is one of the states with the greatest cultural activism in the country. In fact, it is a referent at the national level in terms of student participation of musical programs, a process inspired by the Venezuelan model “El Sistema”, which was first implemented in Tlaxcala 30 years ago. Within this process, the role of Casa de Música (Music Home)—an initiative of the Tlaxcalan Institute of Culture—has been very important, allowing for thousands the opportunity to approach a musical instrument through the different venues offered by the state.

Transition Time: A New Home for The WE

10-02-2019

It’s exhilarating to make something new. Anyone who’s ever started a “music for social change” program, or any kind of new program, or even any work of art or craft, knows that feeling.  For us, starting The World Ensemble in January 2016 (as a companion publication to The Ensemble, which we started in 2011) was exhilarating—it was downright thrilling, in fact—because we knew were creating a medium for communication and exchange for the worldwide Sistema movement. We were creating something needed and helpful where before there had been nothing.

EDITORIAL: The Transformative Power of Big

09-02-2019

I have been lucky enough to attend the last three gatherings of the global Sistema’s biggest events—Side by Side by El Sistema Sweden, Sistema Europe Youth Orchestra, and the YOLA National Festival.  There is no getting around it—these are gigantically complex efforts to design and manage, and they are expensive.

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