October 2018

How do you design, fund, and lead a great community arts project?  If you live in New Zealand, or want to learn from its example, you now have good answers.

For Sistema teenagers, one of the hurdles to exploring the arts is the cost of tickets.  The French Ministry of Culture has rolled out a new multi-million Euro program intended to reduce that barrier for 18-year-olds across the country.

Here is an interview with Linda Cliatt-Wayman, who led one of the most dangerous high schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (United States).

The Colombian project “Music at the Borders” was created to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of the border areas of the country.  The project is run by the country’s national Sistema program, the National Batuta Foundation, and financed by the Colombian Chancellery within the framework of Colombia’s Plan Fronteras para la Prosperidad (Border Plan for Prosperity). 

The NEOJIBA Youth Orchestra of Bahia, Brazil will embark on its seventh international tour this coming month. Students will perform nine concerts in Italy, Switzerland and France, beginning on 2 September in Torino, and finishing with an already sold-out concert at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Weeks seven and eight of my international adventure were spent in New Delhi visiting the Shubhendra and Saskia Rao Foundation. This husband-wife duo of internationally renowned musicians created the program Sangeet4All, a music education curriculum with the mission to empower and uplift people through the rich culture of Indian classical music.

In the June 2018 issue of The World Ensemble, we enthusiastically reported that Sistema Toronto had been granted $500,000 by the Ontario provincial government as part of a significant new investment in arts education.

The first building ever designed entirely for a Sistema-inspired program in the United States, the YOLA Center at Inglewood, is now under construction in Los Angeles.  The YOLA Center will be the fourth program site for the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, and will also provide space for citywide YOLA rehearsals and events.