El Sistema (which translates to The System) is a publicly financed, voluntary sector, music-education program, founded in Venezuela in 1975 by Venezuelan educator, musician, and activist José Antonio Abreu.
El Sistema-inspired programs provide what the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies describes as "free classical music education that promotes human opportunity and development for impoverished children.
"[6] Abreu led the program for nearly four decades with the backing and material support of seven consecutive Venezuelan governments, ranging across the political spectrum from center-right to the current leftist presidency of Nicolás Maduro.
[7] "Play and Fight" was the title of the El Nacional news story about the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela that appeared on 2 February 1976.
The organization soon adopted that phrase as its motto, expressing its members' determination and commitment to El Sistema as a vital and critical project, both orchestrally and socially.
The current Maduro administration has been El Sistema's most generous patron so far, covering almost its entire annual operating budget, as well as additional capital projects.
[10][11] In September 2007, with Abreu present on the television talk-show, Aló Presidente, Hugo Chávez announced a new government program, Misión Música, designed to provide tuition and music instruments to Venezuelan children.
But then the bank has conducted studies on the more than 2,000,000 young people, educated in El Sistema, linking participation in the program to improvements in school attendance and reduction in juvenile delinquency and crime rates.
On 25 May 2008, Leidys Asuaje wrote for Venezuelan daily El Nacional: "The plan to humanize jails through music began 11 months ago under the tutelage of the Ministry of the Interior and Justice and FESNOJIV...."[15] A 2022 investigation by Connectas, with the help of the International Center for Journalists, concluded that the regional centers funded by the IDB were never built and therefore the bank's long-term project to decentralize El Sistema had failed.
The Teresa Carreño Symphony Youth Orchestra, named for the famous Venezuelan pianist, started international touring in the autumn of 2010 with appearances at the Beethoven Fest in Bonn, followed by Vienna, Berlin, Salzburg Festival, Milan, Amsterdam, Madrid, and London.
[4] Conductor Gustavo Dudamel condemned Nicolás Maduro's response to the protests for the first time the day after the killing, writing in social media: "I raise my voice against violence and repression.
The clarinetist started to receive attacks and threats on social networks and during that year's protests her tweets began to be cited, where she expressed anger at the situation and at the abuse of the security forces.
She was detained in the National Institute for Female Orientation (INOF), in Los Teques, Miranda state, and confined to a highly dangerous cell, despite having a release order dated from 18 June.
[27] In November 2014, British musicologist Geoffrey Baker published a newspaper article[28] and a book that disputed many of the claims made by and about El Sistema and suggested that much of the publicly circulating information about the program was hyperbolic or false.
For example, Baker's work alleges that the IADB's claim that El Sistema was reaping about $1.68 in social dividends for each $1 invested was based on dubious calculations and had been withdrawn by the bank itself.
[30] Baker's research was supported in a 2016 article by Lawrence Scripp in which he interviewed the Venezuelan violinist Luigi Mazzocchi, who studied for 15 years at El Sistema starting at age nine.
El Sistema expressed "absolute solidarity with the victims and their families" and said it would ask the Public Prosecutor’s Office "to support opening investigations of any complaint related to any form of violence or human abuse".
[36] At the November 2007 symposium, Abreu expressed delight at the prospect of joining with the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston and other musical institutions in the United States to create a Pan-American movement.
These cover a wide geographical area ranging from Kidznotes in North Carolina, JAMM (Juneau Alaska Music Matters) in that state, and ICAN (Incredible Children's Art Network) in Santa Barbara, California.
First Notes in Vail Valley, Colorado; CityMusic in Cleveland, Ohio; Club O in Fort Wayne, Indiana; Kid Ovation program in Des Moines, Iowa; and Orchestrating Diversity in Saint Louis, Missouri are also inspired by El Sistema.
In September 2024 during the Polaris Dawn space mission Sarah Gillis performed a concert in the Crew Dragon capsule alongside El Sistema music students from around the world including Brazil, Haiti, Sweden, Uganda, USA, and Venezuela.
She played the solo violin part of "Rey's Theme" by John Williams from the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and El Sistema.
In Harmony is a British government-led music education and community development project which is based on El Sistema[90][91] It was begun in 2009 with Julian Lloyd Webber appointed chairman of its steering group.
On 22 November 2007, Julian Lloyd Webber noted the following in regard to the UK government's announcement of an infusion of £332 million dedicated to music education: We also have an impoverished South American nation to thank.
[citation needed] Sistema Scotland was established with a grant from the Scottish Arts Council in 2008, as a result of an initiative by its chairman Richard Holloway in the economically deprived area of Raploch, in Stirling.
Some 850 young people are now involved, in 16 schools in 11 towns: Loures, Oeiras, Sintra, Amadora, Sesimbra, Vila Franca de Xira, Lisboa, Coimbra, Amarante and Gondomar.
Inspired by El Sistema, the Orchestra of the Filipino Youth, is the main arm of Ang Misyon Inc., an institution that supports and provide free music education to the less privileged and talented children in the Philippines.
[101] Inspirated by El Sistema in 2011, the laureated tenor Juan Diego Flores started Symphony for Peru offering music classes and activities for children in low-income families, giving them a chance to develop their talent, teach them values through the arts and pull them away from at-risk situations.
On the initiative of Gustavo Dudamel, former Chief Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, El Sistema Sweden emerged in 2010 on a small scale before then experiencing a sudden growth burst.
[102][103] Brian Levine, managing director of the Glenn Gould Foundation, in an account of his 2008 visit to Caracas wrote: "El Sistema has demonstrated conclusively that music education is the gateway to lifelong learning and a better future."