El Sistema

El Sistema est programme éducation musicale publiquement financé au Venezuela, originellement appelé Action Sociale pour la Musique. Son nom officiel est Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, (Fesnojiv),qui peut etre traduit par "Fondation d'état pour un systéme national d'orchestre pour la jeunesse du Venezuela"). El Sistema est une fondation publique qui supervise les 125 orchestres pour la jeunesse du Venezuela et les programmes de formation instrumentale qui les accompagnent.

El Sistema a 30 orchestres symphoniques. Mais sa plus grande réalisation sont les 250.000 enfants qui fréquentent ses écoles de musique à travers le pays, 90 pour cent d'entre eux issus de milieux socio-économiques défavorisés.

Histoire

En 1975, au Venezuela, l'économiste et musicien José Antonio Abreu fonda "l'action sociale pour la musique" et en devint le directeur. Abreu a dirigé le programme pendant les 35 dernières années grâce à dix administrations différentes, florissant sous les présidents des années 1980 et l'administration de gauche d'Hugo Chávez. Alliant finesse politique avec la dévotion religieuse, Abreu s'est consacré à un rêve utopique dans lequel un orchestre représente la société idéale, et le plus tôt un enfant se nourrit dans ce milieu, le meilleur pour tous.

Le gouvernment du Venezuela commença à financer entiérement l'orchestre d'Abreu aprés son succés brillant à une competition internationale en 1977 à Aberdeen. Dès le début, El Sistema est tombé sous la domination des ministères des services sociaux, et non le ministère de la Culture, qui a contribué de façon stratégique pour survivre. L'administration actuelle Chavez a été le patron le plus généreux d'El Sistema à ce jour, près de pied ensemble de son budget annuel de fonctionnement ainsi que des projets d'immobilisations supplémentaires.

Abreu a reçu le Prix National de Musique pour ses travaux en 1979. Abreu a été nommé Ambassadeur spécial pour le développement d'un réseau mondial de la Jeunesse et des orchestres et des chœurs pour la jeunesse par l'UNESCO en 1995, également en tant que représentant spécial pour le développement du réseau d'orchestres dans le cadre du "Mouvement mondiale des orchestres et des chœurs pour la jeunesse " de l'UNESCO .[2][3]

Son réseau de 102 orchestres pour les jeunes et 55 orchestres d'enfants (d'un effectif d'environ 100.000 membres) est venu plus tard, sous la supervision du Ministère de la Famille, Santé et des Sports. L'objectif d'El Sistema est d'utiliser la musique pour la protection de la jeunesse à travers la formation, de réadaptation et de prévention des comportements criminels.

The program is known for rescuing young people in extremely impoverished circumstances from the environment of drug abuse and crime into which they would likely otherwise be drawn. [4] Participants of the program who have begun international careers include Gustavo Dudamel, Edicson Ruiz[5], Joen Vazquez, Pedro Eustache, L. Miguel Rojas, Edward Pulgar, Natalia Luis-Bassa, among others.

In September 2007, President Hugo Chávez announced on television a new government program, Misión Música, designed to provide tuition and music instruments to Venezuelan children, with Abreu present on the TV program.

A documentary film has been produced on the subject of El Sistema, entitled Tocar y Luchar ("Play and Fight", 2004).[6] The film has won several awards, including "best documentary" at the Cine Las Americas International Film Festival and also the Albuquerque Latino Film Festival. In 2008 another documentary made by Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier about the system will appear. [7] El Sistema has also been featured on news programs such as 60 Minutes.[8]

An important product of El Sistema is the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra (Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar). In 2007 the orchestra made its debut at Carnegie Hall and at the BBC Proms début under the baton of Dudamel, receiving enthusiastic reviews.[9][10] With top qualified musicians ElSistema has recently created a new Youth Orchestra named after Teresa Carreno that will start International touring this fall.^{[réf. nécessaire]}

On 6 June 2007, the Inter-American Development Bank announced the granting of a US$150 million loan for the construction of seven regional centers of El Sistema throughout Venezuela. Many bankers within the IDB originally objected to the loan on the grounds that classical music is for the elite. In fact, the bank has conducted studies on the more than two million young people who have been educated in El Sistema which link participation in the program to improvements in school attendance and declines in juvenile delinquency. Weighing such benefits as a falloff in school drop-out rates and a decline in crime, the bank calculated that every dollar invested in El Sistema was reaping about $1.68 in social dividends. Supported by the government, El Sistema has started to introduce its music program into the public-school curriculum, aiming to be in every school and to support 500,000 children by 2015.[11]

The project has been extended to the penal system. On 25 May 2008, Leidys Asuaje wrote for Venezuelan daily El Nacional: "The plan to humanize jails through music began eleven months ago under the tutelage of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice and FESNOJIV...."[12]

Reconnaissance

Drew McManus wrote a four-part series about El Sistema: The Future of Classical Music is in Venezuela.[13][14][15][16]

John Williams was quoted in the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional on 5 November 2007: "This is something unique that has to be seen by the whole world.... [and] which we urgently need here [in the USA]."[17]

Un symposium publique sur El Sistema a eu lieu le 7 Novembre 2007 à Boston, Massachusetts, et est disponible en webcast. WGBH Forum Network

Le panel d'intervenants:

• Jose Antonio Abreu, Fondateur d'El Sistema (non inclus dans le webcast.)
• Mark Slavkin, Vice-Président d'Education, LA Music Center
• Leni Boorstin, Directeur de Community Affairs, LA Philharmonic
• Sebastian Ruth, Fondateur, Directeur de Community MusicWorks
• Steve Seidel, Directeur du Project Zero
• George Simpson, Directeur de Roland Hayes School of Music
• John Tobin, siégeant à Arts Committee, Boston City Council
• Polly Kahn, Vice-Présidente de "League of American Orchestras"
• Mark Churchill, Doyen de Preparatory & Continuing Ed., NEC

On 22 November 2007, Julian Lloyd Webber said this about the UK government's announcement of an infusion of £332 million just for music-education:

"We also have an impoverished South American nation to thank. Last August, in the midst of school holidays, when an uncomfortable number of British children seemed even more disaffected than usual, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra arrived from Venezuela to deliver performances at the Edinburgh Festival and the London Proms that were, quite simply, miraculous" [18]. Lloyd Webber was appointed chairman of the steering group of In Harmony, a British government-led music education and community development project which is inspired by El Sistema [19].

Sistema Scotland was established in Scotland with a grant from the Scottish Arts Council, as a result of an initiative by its chairman Richard Holloway, for the purpose of breaking the cycle of poverty in the economically depressed area of Raploch, in Stirling, where male life expectancy is less than 63 years.

In England "the Department of Culture has put aside £2m to a three-year scheme [called In Harmony] which will focus on three impoverished areas...”[20] According to Peter Stevenson of Sistema Scotland, the £2m mentioned here is part of the £332 million that the Glennie-Galway-Webber-Kamen music education consortium helped generate.

Alexander Bernstein said: “This is something we need in the United States.” Source, El Universal, Caracas, Venezuela, 12 January 2008.

This is from the WorldTeach website:

"El Sistema has invited WorldTeach to help identify and support outstanding chamber musicians who are interested in teaching and coaching for the academic year.

"The first groups will depart in late August 2008 and teach through mid July 2009. El Sistema is seeking musicians who will, after joining the WorldTeach Venezuela program, form the following ensembles:

2 string quartets, 1 brass quintet, 1 woodwind quintet, 2 percussionists" [21]

Accolades

On 14 February 2008, El Sistema founder José Antonio Abreu was awarded the Glenn Gould Prize. [22]. Brian Levine, Managing Director, Glenn Gould Foundation, wrote an account of his recent (2008) visit to Caracas; in part he wrote: "El Sistema has demonstrated conclusively that music education is the gateway to lifelong learning and a better future."[23]

On 21 May 2008, El Sistema was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts.[24]

On 13 June 2008, El Sistema founder Maestro Abreu was a guest speaker at the National Performing Arts Convention-2008 in Denver, Colorado. [25]

On 5 February 2009, José Antonio Abreu won the TED prize for his work on El Sistema, and was granted a TED wish. [26]