Young members of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra. Credit: Courtesy Fundamusical Bolívar

By Humberto Márquez
CHICAGO, Illinois, US , Dec 3 2012 (IPS)

A group of young people walk down the streets of Chicago, broad grins on their faces. They have good reason to be happy: the ovations received by their repertoire of Latin American music when they played in the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela still echo in their ears.

They are conscious that they are professional members of an orchestra with sold-out performances wherever it appears – in Europe, Asia or the Americas.

The orchestra is also the foremost symbol of an orchestral and choral system – known simply as “El Sistema” – developed as a social and educational project, which has benefited some 400,000 children and young people in Venezuela, mainly from underprivileged backgrounds.

They have spent many years immersed in musical studies, like any virtuoso. But in their case they were first gathered together in regional music schools, and later on for public performances in the pyramid of children’s and youth orchestras of which they have now reached the pinnacle, the acclaimed jewel in the crown.

Commitment to constant study and teamwork is the key. First bassoonist Gonzalo Hidalgo, a 28-year-old from the state of Barinas in the southwestern plains, several of whose uncles are folk harpists, and who has just graduated as a medical doctor, sums it up.

“How did I manage to play in the orchestra and study medicine for eight years? Well, I gave up days off; while other people were at the beach or out dancing, I was dividing my time, asking professors to schedule me to take exams early, and they were understanding, because I think two out of three of my teachers were frustrated musicians,” he told IPS.

As a resident physician, his day at the University Hospital in Caracas starts at dawn. He attends patients until 11:00, when he rehearses with the orchestra for three hours, then returns to the hospital. At night he studies. When he travels, a colleague looks after his patients.

“I remember beautiful moments, like playing in the Acropolis in Greece or in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra concert hall, where I played a bassoon solo in Igor Stravinski’s Rite of Spring. But above all I appreciate what we have done in Venezuela to bring people to concert halls to hear classical music,” Hidalgo said.

Gabriela Jiménez, a 28-year-old cellist, lives in the busy centre of Caracas. “We belong to a demanding and very energetic orchestra, which moves sophisticated audiences like those in Italy or Germany, and defends our music, a Latin American repertoire,” she told IPS.

On its U.S. tour, which took them to San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and New York, the orchestra played “Sinfonía India” by Mexican composer Carlos Chávez (1899-1978), “Tres versiones sinfónicas” (Three Symphonic Versions) by Spanish-Cuban composer Julián Orbón (1925-1991) and “La noche de los mayas” (The Night of the Mayas) by Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940) of Mexico.

Also in the repertoire were “Rituales Amerindios – Chaac” (Chaac, the Mayan water god, from Amerindian Rituals) by the young Argentine composer Esteban Benzecry, “Choros número 10” (Choros number 10 – It Tears the Heart) by Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) and “Cantata Criolla” (Creole Cantata) by Venezuelan Antonio Estévez (1916-1988) of Venezuela.

“I took music lessons when I was very young, and then I went to a núcleo (group) that was part of El Sisterma, and I won a place in the Bolívar Orchestra by audition in 2006. Once upon a time I wanted to be an architect, but now this is my world, everything is centred on the orchestra,” said Jiménez, who has a Master’s degree in Cultural Industries from the Complutense University of Madrid.

Mayerling Carrero, who is from the Andes on the southwestern border with Colombia, has 22 relatives who are musicians, 15 of whom play the trombone, including her brother Pedro who is the first trombonist in the orchestra.

It was natural for her to take up the instrument. “The trombone has seven positions; when I was a little girl I could only reach three,” she told IPS, laughing. Like her fellow musicians in El Sistema, she spent her mornings at primary school and her afternoons playing music. Later she completed a secondary school programme specialising in music, attended the University of the Arts, and joined the orchestra.

At 29 the mother of a 15-month-old daughter, Carrero is the only woman trombonist in the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, where she has played for 12 years. But she confidently says that “any girl who likes the instrument can play it, if she is willing to study, play and struggle.”

First percussionist Félix Mendoza also inherited a legacy. His grandfather Napoleón Baltodano, who arrived in Venezuela from Nicaragua in 1929, was a trumpet player and music teacher, composed meringues, and formed an orchestra in the Venezuelan plains region.

“They tell me I began much like other children, hitting pot lids with spoons in the kitchen,” he told IPS. “Later on I wanted to play the trumpet, but they told me I couldn’t because I was too small, and so it was easier to take up percussion, especially as an uncle of mine who was a drummer gave me lessons.”

His father, an evangelical pastor in El Tigre, a southeastern Venezuelan city dependent on the oil industry, “always supported my studying music, but was very apprehensive about whether it could really provide a livelihood and support a family. Now he can see that it is possible,” said the 27-year-old Mendoza, who is married to a violinist and is the father of a newborn daughter.

The 180 other performers in the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra have similar stories. Their conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, another young man from the provinces who owes his stardom to El Sistema, is one of the most sought-after conductors on several continents.

Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra in Vienna’s Konzerthaus. Credit: Nohely Oliveros - Fundamusical Bolívar

By Humberto Márquez
VIENNA, Oct 1 2012 (IPS)

Venezuela’s youth orchestras have gotten used to wild applause and standing ovations in Europe.

But this time the warm reception was not for the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the most visible face of the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela (FESNOJIV), a network of youth and children’s orchestras that has put instruments and music scores in the hands of 400,000 children and young people.

The concert held in Vienna’s Konzerthaus on Thursday Sept. 27 before an audience of 1,800 people featured the less experienced Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra, whose 170 members are between the ages of 14 and 25, is about to complete a tour that has taken it to Ravello, Italy; Prague, Czech Republic; St. Petersburg, Russia; Ghent, Belgium; and the Austrian capital. The last stop is the Beethovenfest in Bonn.

“This audience that has gone crazy here has always been very demanding, shaped over decades by a repertoire like the one we present and which can be a challenge for any orchestra,” Dietrich Paredes, the orchestra’s 29-year-old conductor who was previously first violin, or concertmaster, told reporters in the dressing room in Vienna.

On Thursday, every piece was wildly applauded, like Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Francesca di Rimini, Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, Bacchanale by Camille Saint-Saens, Johann Strauss I’s Radetzky March, Klaus Wunderlich’s Tico Tico and Leonard Bernstein’s Mambo.

The spectators applaud and applaud until even the most reluctant are on their feet, and the youngsters in the orchestra pull off their yellow, blue and red jackets – the colours of the Venezuelan flag – and toss them to the audience, in what has become a tradition.

“The public is fascinated because these marvellous interpretations by people who are so young are a gift to the heart,” said Karl Schagerl, representing the Konzerthaus. “And for us, as a musical city and a musical country, it is important for the world of politics to see how important the music of these orchestras is for society.”

For over three decades, FESNOJIV, known in Venezuela simply as “the system”, has been one of this South American country’s outstanding achievements. Hundreds of thousands of children, adolescents and young adults have received a musical education in 90 preschool, 130 children’s, 288 youth and over 30 professional orchestras throughout Venezuela.

The system also has choirs – the Simón Bolívar National Youth Choir was performing in the United States while the Caracas Youth Symphony Orchestra toured Europe – guitar-making workshops, orchestras in prisons, a conservatory, and thousands of music teachers dispersed around the country.

From this nursery for young talent emerge musicians like Carlos Vargas, a percussionist who was named to the leadership of the youth orchestra and who stressed “the way these European audiences, for whom we play European music, have received us.”

Paredes’ explanation is that “the Caracas orchestra has a unique character that makes all the difference. For these very grown-up audiences, who are used to performances by orchestras made up of top-quality professionals, it’s something different to see an orchestra of young people who have such a particular sense of rhythm, strength, style and energy.”

Vargas told IPS “for us it is an honour and a pleasure to be on these stages, but it is also a challenge, because this is where so many leading composers and orchestras have worked and performed.”

Europe, he said, “has always had youth orchestras, but as a programme to train their musicians. We see it as a way of life.”

Andrés Rivas, 22, a concertmaster who is now a budding conductor, said his new responsibility was “first and foremost a privilege in a world where orchestras seek experienced conductors. That is why my wish is to direct this orchestra in the best theatres, and for the orchestra to get better and better.”

“We also want to continue transmitting our knowledge to the children, to the kids of the coming generations. We already have the future: this is it,” Rivas told IPS.

They said the system did not favour the Venezuelan capital at the expense of the regions. When the Caracas youth orchestra goes on international tours – like the current European tour or previous ones in China, South Korea, Norway, Portugal or Colombia – they invite musicians from youth orchestras in the provinces.

When the members of the youth orchestras talk about their experience, they invariably underscore the work of and the example set by their maestro, musician and economist
José Antonio Abreu, who founded the system in 1975 after inviting a dozen youngsters to start practicing in a basement parking lot.

Year after year, Abreu has led the initiative – which won Spain’s prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts in 2008 – raising funds, creating new projects, accompanying the youngsters on many of their trips, and helping other countries replicate the system.

Fortunately for the system, it has remained on the margins of the political polarisation in Venezuela, where President Hugo Chávez, in power since 1999, is set to win another term on Oct. 7, according to the polls.

Since the system was created, it has had the support of every administration. In the last year, it received 127 million dollars in public funds.