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El Sistema: Venezuelan Music Education Miracle
November 7, 2007
Jose Antonio Abreu founder, El Sistema
Mark Slavkin vp, education, LA Music Center
Leni Boorstin director, community affairs, LA Philharmonic
Sebastian Ruth founder, director, Community MusicWorks
Steven Seidel director, Arts in Education Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education
George Simpson director, Roland Hayes School of Music
John Tobin Boston city councilor
Polly Kahn vp, League of American Orchestras
Mark Churchill dean, preparatory & continuing ed., NEC

News of the monumental success of El Sistema, Venezuela's 32-year-old program of social action through music, is rapidly spreading throughout the world. Today over 250,000 Venezuelan teenagers and children, most from impoverished backgrounds, are being filled with an "affluence of the spirit" through the intensive study of music and the participation in orchestras and ensembles. No less a figure than Sir Simon Rattle, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, has called El Sistema "the most important thing happening in classical music in the world today".

As part of the NEC-sponsored Boston residency of El Sistema's flagship orchestra, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, the symposium, organized by NEC's Center for Music-in-Education, explores the questions on everyone's lips: How did this phenomenon come about? How can we learn from it? How can we apply it in our own country? Join Maestro Jose Antonio Abreu and leading figures in education and culture a they explore the answers.

This panel discussion moderated by Eric Booth, celebrated author on arts in education and founder of the Teaching Artist Journal.

Art & Architecture | Education
Arts in Education | chamber music | Classical Music | community | Culture | extracurricular | latin america | latin music | Music | music education | musical | Public Schools | venezuela
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Author: Shirley Veenema, Larry Scripp, Kimberly Powell, Nina Olff, Steve Seidel, Edward Kirby, Joseph Walters
Publisher: National Education Association (1997)
Binding: Paperback, 160 pages
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