Educación artística

After months of work behind the scenes and four days together in Dundee, Scotland, a 95-musician orchestra made up of Big Noise and YOLA musicians—plus 100 younger Big Noise members forming a choir—came together on stage at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall for the Festival’s Family Concert on August 16, 2026.

It was a beautiful moment. But even before they ever shared the stage, the young musicians from Scotland and Los Angeles had achieved something remarkable.

This is the first time the Ensemble team has encountered a novel written about a Sistema-inspired program.

TATI (Teaching Artist Training Institute) is launching its inaugural Leaders Fellowship Program, a six-month professional learning experience for leaders of community music and El Sistema-inspired programs.

Something special happens when young musicians are invited to trace the roots of their art form to its source. This October, a group of high school students from Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play education initiatives had the rare opportunity to do just that through a cultural exchange of jazz and blues music in Clarksdale, Mississippi. 

Chorus America’s Music Education Partnership Grants support two-year collaborations between choral music organizations and K-12 schools serving students from historically underserved communities.

El Sistema USA’s Youth Leadership Initiative brings together young musicians and program leaders in the US to develop and spread leadership and life skills.

El Sistema USA just opened the applications for the 2027-28 Youth Leadership Institute (YLI), a year-long cohort that brings together program leaders and young musicians as co-learners.

The Creative Economy Pathways Virtual Town Hall Series, hosted by Creating Abundance Collaborative, explores how Creative Youth Development (CYD) organizations open career pathways through arts-based experiences and youth leadership.

RESEO, a European network dedicated to education, participation, and transformation through opera, music, and dance, is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year with a conference titled Making Noise: The Future that We Want.

In Nancy Fraser’s framework, social justice requires both redistribution (economic resources) and recognition (cultural and symbolic status). Symbolic recognition is the validation of one’s identity, dignity, and self-worth within a broader socio-cultural context. And in 1990s Medellín—our time—young people faced material deprivation and severe symbolic misrecognition, viewed solely through the lens of urban violence, stigma, and invisibility.