Spanish Translation

Thirty-eight members of this year’s Global Leader Program cohort traveled to Chile for two weeks last month to learn, collaborate, build relationships, teach, and put into action their passion for harnessing the power of music to serve community and education.  Each one came away with a deeper commitment to their aspirations and heightened zeal for their work as cultural agents, social entrepreneurs, and teaching artists.

El Sistema Japan welcomed the musicians of the Ensemble Lara Somos, from Venezuela, at Japan’s El Sistema Festival 2018 last month.  Ensemble Lara Somos gave a number of presentations, and were joined by Japanese Sistema students in a gala concert conducted by Enluis Montes Olivar at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theater on 1 December.

On December 16th, El Sistema Greece was proud to be part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center’s “Christmas World” concerts, playing festive music from around the world. They were joined by the Latin Brass Connection, an ensemble consisting of members of the Venezuelan Simon Bolivar Trumpet Ensemble.

NEOJIBA in Brazil honored their 2018 accomplishments with a week-long Facebook campaign called #RetrospectivaNEOJIBA (NEOJIBA Retrospective). The program posted about the most memorable moments that marked 2018, from benefit concerts and trips to features of new projects. One such post:

Ghetto Classics in Kenya held a special concert on 18th November at St. John’s Community Centre in Korogocho. Students had the opportunity to showcase all of the work they had done this year. In lieu of ticket sales, attendees were encouraged to bring school supplies and clothes.

Here are a few new Sistema ideas in the United States, and an invitation to the join the El Sistema USA National Symposium at the end of January:

La Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín (The Music School Network of Medellín) toured the East Coast of the United States in November. Eighty students from La Red’s 27 music schools across Medellín, Colombia were selected through auditions to be part of this creative journey. These students had the opportunity to analyze and reflect on the city they live in, and to produce a 60-minute musical suite called “Medellín Canción Viva” [Medellín, A Living Song].

Opera is one of the most complex accomplishments of our Western musical heritage, mixing vocal and instrumental musical with poetry, theater and visual arts.  In our times, freed from many elitist clichés, it can come back to its primal source and be experienced as a very popular form of artistic expression. Its mix of singing and acting, of costumes and lightings, can be a great attraction for young people, who can play and enjoy as they learn from the operatic experience.

The Philippines-based Orchestra of the Filipino Youth (OFY) made its Middle East debut last month.

Registration is now open for the 2019 El Sistema Academy in Stockholm, Sweden!  The 3rd annual El Sistema Academy will take place at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm on 25-27 January 2019.