From the model of El Sistema in Venezuela to current applications: learning and integration through collective music education
Over the last years, El Sistemathe Venezuelan project started in 1975 and now acknowledged worldwide as the most significant example of collective music educationhas inspired a profusion of remarkable initiatives on all continents. From the original impulse by founder Jos Antonio Abreu, strong social principles of integration are combined with specific musical approaches to achieve individual empowerment as a large-scale alternative to endemic juvenile crime, counteracting the risk factors of social unease, serving as a stimulating example toward emancipation, and providing professional opportunities to the talented. Such a network, in turn, proves to be a powerful instrument of cultural progress: the tenets of Sistema become shared values able to foster development, reaching into issues of disability and rehabilitation. This paper presents continuities and contrasts in various ramifications of such a successful trend and outlines perspectives for further impact of this powerful transformational agent.
el sistema venezuela music education jos antonio abreu italy social integration claudio abbado