cultural identity
EDITORIAL
Navigating Constraint with Dignity: Lessons from Kinshasa’s “Positive Fatalism”
Lukas Pairon, Professor and Founder of Chair Jonet, University of Ghent, Belgium; Founder of the scholarly network SIMM; Founder of the Music Fund philanthropy; Co-founder of the contemporary music ensemble Ictus.
What can we learn from people who live in one of the most constrained urban environments in the world—and still find ways to make life possible?
Suggested Reading: To Be Young, Gifted and Black
To Be Young, Gifted and Black, a new book by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason, offers an intimate look at how her children navigated their professional path into the classical music world while exploring their cultural, racial, and national identities.
Between Tradition and Innovation: Reimagining Teacher Training at NEOJIBA
José Henrique de Campos, Educational Director, NEOJIBA
When trying to renew an initiative that has existed for almost a decade, our great challenge is to find that precise balance between valuing tradition and proposing something new. At NEOJIBA State Nuclei for Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Bahia, this balance is fundamental to our continuous search for improvement—praising what already works, recognizing what can be improved, and having the tranquility to suggest something innovative without losing the essence of an idea.
It was in this spirit that in 2023, on a sunny afternoon during Bahia’s “eternal summer,” we began to redesign PROCEC, our collective teacher training program.
EDITORIAL
Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of El Sistema Venezuela
Rodrigo Guerrero, Staff Specialist for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Babson College, Massachusetts, USA; former Associate Director of International Relations and Institutional Development, El Sistema Venezuela
The Venezuela of 1975 is in sharp contrast to its current reality. Fifty years ago, the country was fully reconstructed after an oppressive military dictatorship and on track for economic growth. That was the context in which a young, brilliant composer and conductor, who also happened to be a gifted politician, used his combined talents to convince the government to support something that felt out of place to officialdom, but, in his vision, right at home.
