Sistema Scotland
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| Formation | 1975 |
|---|---|
| Founder | José Antonio Abreu |
| Type | non-profit |
| Purpose | Music education |
| Location |
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| Website | FESNOJIV official site |
El Sistema is a publicly financed voluntary sector music education program in Venezuela, founded in 1975 by Venezuelan educator, musician and activist José Antonio Abreu which later adopted the motto "Music for Social Change". El Sistema-inspired programs provide "free classical music education that promotes human opportunity and development for impoverished children," as quoted from the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies. By 2015, according to official figures, El Sistema consisted of over 400 music centers and 700,000 young musicians. The original program in Venezuela provides 4 hours of musical training and rehearsal per week day after school, as well as work on the weekends. Most El Sistema-inspired programs in the United States provide 7 or more hours of instruction each week, as well as an instrument.
It all began with 11 students in an underground parking garage under the leadership of José Antonio Abreu. For many years its official name was Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, (FESNOJIV), which is sometimes translated into English as "National Network of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela". It has recently changed to Fundación Musical Simón Bolívar (FMSB) but it is still widely known by the FESNOJIV acronym.
Abreu said that "Music has to be recognized as an agent of social development, in the highest sense because it transmits the highest values – solidarity, harmony, mutual compassion. And it has the ability to unite an entire community, and to express sublime feelings."
Abreu has navigated the program for nearly four decades, through ten different administrations, flourishing "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 Hugo Chávez"..(although).."he is careful to keep the Sistema separate from partisan politics". Combining political shrewdness with religious devotion, Abreu has dedicated himself to a Utopian dream in which an orchestra represents the ideal society, and the sooner a child is nurtured in that environment, the better for all.
This was the title of the El Nacional news about the National Youth Orchestra appeared on February 2, 1976. Converted and assumed as the motto of the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela, "Play and Fight", reflects the determination and the commitment that has always characterized its members and that have made El Sistema the most important orchestral and social project in music history.
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Wikipedia