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New Guiding Pillars Amplify Our Collective Voice

Elizabeth Moulthrop, Executive Director, El Sistema USA

09-03-2025

Nearly two decades ago, a handful of United States programs that were inspired by El Sistema in Venezuela opened their doors. Since then, El Sistema USA® has become a network of more than 150 organizations—the largest such network in the world. Our members represent a diverse array of music programs from dozens of states, as well as international programs in adjacent countries from Canada to Haiti. Given the diversity and breadth of our network, it’s reasonable to ask: What is the common thread between these programs? And why does this collective work matter? Watching and helping this coalition grow and evolve, we have been able to isolate a few distinct qualities that unite us and affirm the power of our collective voice.

Music Cities Awards Application Is Now Open

04-02-2025

Applications for the 2025 Music Cities Awards are now open through April 28, honoring music initiatives creating social, cultural, and economic impact on a local or international level.

Trombone Shorty Builds Musical Ties between U.S. and Cuba

03-05-2025

Musicians wield powerful tools for strengthening diplomatic relations: their instruments.

Global Collaboration Reimagines Classic Song with an Important Message

12-11-2024

What’s better than true international collaboration? Over 100 musicians, educators, and students from five countries—Ghana, Rwanda, Panama, Morocco, and the United States—have reimagined the Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” with a new music video produced by non-profit Young Musicians Unite and the Playing for Change Foundation.

Asian Cultural Council Grants

10-02-2024

EDITORIAL
The Sound of the World

Anis Barnat, Co-founder, El Sistema Greece; Managing Director, Community Arts Network (CAN)

09-04-2024

National and international youth orchestra and choir festivals instill a collaborative mindset in their participants and provide all attendees with powerful, lasting memories. But they are time-consuming to organize, requiring logistical know-how and well-considered, family-flexible safeguarding policies for the children and young people. It’s not only tiring; it’s expensive. And program leaders know firsthand that students progress with or without these national or international festivals. So why bother? What do they offer to young people that their own programs can’t provide?

My answer, in a word: perspective.

Two International Grant Opportunities

07-10-2024

We know how hard it is to obtain funding for the work you do, so we’re eager to share two grant opportunities that support community-building and international cultural-exchange initiatives.

GUEST PERSPECTIVE
Creating Collaborative Pathways for Expanded Support of CYD

Shenika Ofor, Head of Communications, The Lewis Prize for Music

06-05-2024

As The Lewis Prize enters a new phase, we are taking the learnings from our grant process, field relationships, and research to create a platform for expanded investment in creative youth development. We’ve designed the Creating Abundance Collaborative, a cross-sector space where practitioners, young people, researchers, philanthropists, and policymakers come together to advance the field through shared learning and pooled resources.

Jameel Arts & Health Lab Launches Four International Research Studies

05-17-2023

The Jameel Arts & Health Lab—the brainchild of the World Health Organization (WHO), New York University’s Steinhardt School, the non-profit organization Culturunners, and philanthropic foundation Community Jameel—was launched earlier this year with an ambitious mission: to research how the arts can improve the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities in some of the most challenging places around the world.

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