Gabrielle Molina
EDITORIAL
Rehearsing Community for a Better Tomorrow
Gabrielle Molina, Executive Director, Project Music; Lead Program Consultant, El Sistema USA
As Executive Director Liz Moulthrop remarked during El Sistema USA’s East Coast Regional Gathering, “Community is our power.” Yet too often programs operate in isolation, brilliant islands of musical striving that rarely connect with the broader archipelago of creative youth development work happening across the world. This siloing, while understandable given resource constraints and logistical challenges, represents a missed opportunity to address our urgent need for unity.
In fact, we must double down on gathering. The practice of community.
The El Sistema USA National Symposium: A Report from a First-Timer
Emily Buehler, Manager of Programs and Community Engagement and teaching artist, Paterson Music Project
As a first-time attendee at the El Sistema USA Symposium, an annual event that brings together people from across the U.S. who are involved in Sistema-inspired work, I didn’t quite know what to expect. But the experience was invaluable. It took place June 13-15, and I am still buzzing with inspiration and excitement about being part of the El Sistema community.
EDITORIAL
A Musician’s Guide to Reaching for the Stars
Liz Moulthrop, Executive Director, El Sistema USA
A year ago, I received a phone call asking me if El Sistema USA® wanted to partner with a commercial mission to space called Polaris Dawn. I was as surprised to get this call as you probably are to hear about it. My first thought was: Why El Sistema USA?
A Special Partnership Generates a Regional Residency
The Ensemble Editorial Staff in conversation with Gabrielle Molina, Executive Director of Project Music; Founder of Teaching Artists International, Inc., and Garrett Mendez, Artistic Director of Project Music; Performance Arts Coordinator and Director of Instrumental Music at King School
Music students from many regions, coming together across distances to spend days of intensive music-making together—around the world, this has long been one of El Sistema’s most famous and valued traditions. For the past two pandemic years, that tradition has been largely shut down.
But it’s beginning to come to life again.
