El Sistema
Subtitle: orchestrating Venezuela's youth
By: Geoffrey Baker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 362
ISBN-13: 9780199341559
Subjects: Music and youth; Music; Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela; Instruction and study; Influence; Fundación Musical Simón Bolívar; Symphony orchestras; History
Description: The Venezuelan youth orchestra program known as "El Sistema" has attracted much attention internationally, partly via its flagship orchestra, The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, headed by Gustavo Dudamel, and partly through its claims to use classical music education to rescue vulnerable children. Having been met overwhelmingly with praise, The System has become an inspiration for music educators around the globe. Yet, despite its fame, influence, and size--it is projected to number a million students in Venezuela and has spread to dozens of countries--it has been the subject of surprisingly little scrutiny and genuine debate. In this first full-length critical study of the program, Geoffrey Baker explores the career of its founder, José Antonio Abreu, and the ideology and organizational dynamics of his institution.^

Drawing on a year of fieldwork in Venezuela and interviews with Venezuelan musicians and cultural figures, Baker examines El Sistema's program of "social action through music," reassessing widespread beliefs about the system as a force for positive social change. Abreu, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, emerges as a complex and controversial figure, whose project is shaped by his religious education, economics training, and political apprenticeship. Claims for the symphony orchestra as a progressive pedagogical tool and motor of social justice are questioned, and assertions that the program prioritizes social over musical goals and promotes civic values such as democracy, meritocracy, and teamwork are also challenged. Placing El Sistema in historical and comparative perspective, Baker reveals that it is far from the revolutionary social program of contemporary imagination, representing less the future of classical music than a step backwards into its past.^

A controversial and eye-opening account sure to stir debate, El Sistema is an essential read for anyone curious about this phenomenon in the worlds of classical music, education, and social development [Publisher description]
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-345) and index.
Table of contents: title: The institution and its leaders. El maestro : José Antonio Abreu ; Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra ; Organizational features and dynamics ; Demographics and development; title: Music education. The orchestra in theory and practice ; Learning and teaching in El Sistema; title: Social education. Social action through music ; Social inclusion and discipline ; Democracy, teamwork, competition, and meritocracy ; Realities, dreams, and revolutions; title: Impact. The politics and economics of impact ; Impact on Venezuelan cultural life ; Advances, alternatives, and the future.