Skaramagas Refugee Camp
Hosting Fire Up! in Athens: A Week of Collective Practice and Exchange
Angeliki Georgokosta, General Manager, and Lydia Margari, Ensembles Manager, El Sistema Greece
When the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM) suggested bringing the Fire Up! residency to Athens, we felt both excitement and a strong sense of responsibility. Our space is deeply meaningful to us; El Sistema Greece is a vibrant community grounded in trust, creativity, and daily collaboration, and inviting colleagues from across Europe into that community felt acutely personal. The residency itself was intense and demanding, with constant transitions between workshops, rehearsals, peer exchanges, and shared experiences. It also afforded us a rare opportunity: a chance to be students in our own teaching spaces, and to see those spaces through the eyes of our peers.
El Sistema Greece: A Multiform Approach to Multiple Circumstances
Anis Barnat, Cofounder of El Sistema Greece, and José Ángel Salazar Marín, Artistic Director of El Sistema Greece
El Sistema Greece is a free music education program open to all children in Greece. Because our students come from more than 30 different countries, the impact of the work we do, both with refugee children and with the larger local community encompassing both migrants and natives, is twofold.
