GregFalken.com

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El Sistema Comes to the U.S.

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My mother, who lives in Los Angeles, has been telling me about the new, young conductor of the LA Philharmonic and his involvement in music education for disadvantaged kids but it didn’t really sink in until I watched some YouTube videos (see below) of performances by the youth symphony that he directs in his native Venezuela. Having watched these and followed up with more reading, it’s fair to say that I’m blown away by this sweeping and successful program. Here’s the story.

Thirty three years ago, Jose Antonio Abreu had an ambitious dream to bring music to the youth of Venezuela, without regard for class or race. At the first gathering, his concern was that he had only 50 music stands for an expected 100 children. This turned out not to be a problem when only 11 showed up. From these tenuous beginnings, he forged El Sistema (The System), more formally known as the Fundación del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela (National Network of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela).  Today, 300,000 children attend its music schools around the country and perform in its 600 orchestras.

The goal of El Sistema is not to produce virtuoso musicians but rather to promote social organization and community development. From a 2007 New York Times article:

The most remarkable feature of the Venezuelan music-education system is its instant immersion: the children begin playing in ensembles from the moment they pick up their instruments. Their instructors say the students are learning to behave as much as they are discovering how to make music. “In an orchestra, everybody respects meritocracy, everybody respects tempo, everybody knows he has to support everyone else, whether he is a soloist or not,” explains Igor Lanz, the executive director of the private foundation that administers the government-financed sistema. “They learn that the most important thing is to work together in one common aim.” Across Venezuela the sistema has established 246 centers, known as nucleos, which admit children between 2 and 18, assign them instruments and organize them into groups with instructors. Typically practicing for two or three hours every day, the children are performing recognizable music virtually from the outset.

Maestro Gustavo Dudamel is El Sistema’s most famous graduate. Last year, at age 28, he became the Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, while continuing as Music Director of the Gothenburg [Sweden] Symphony and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela. (Interestingly, LA has a history of hiring the very young; Zubin Mehta was just 26 when he took over the Philharmonic in 1962.) Dudamel also brought El Sistema to Los Angeles, starting with his debut performance at the Hollywood Bowl. Jill Stewart, of the LA Weekly, blogged about the October 2009 concert:

The most amazing moment last night, by far, was when YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), who were recruited from tough areas including gang-ridden South Central, performed Beethoven. Dudamel almost physically dragged these gifted-but-clearly-a-ways-to-go neophytes through the piece. It was incredible to watch him — and them.

Yes, you could hear a bit of discord, a few instruments coming in late, that sort of thing. But it was gorgeous — and at the triumphant ending, as the final notes rang out, the childrens’ mostly working class parents, sitting right up front in poolside seats that normally probably cost $100 or $200, absolutely ERUPTED with glee.

El Sistema has become a global movement, including established programs in Scotland and England. In the US, The New England Conservatory has launched El Sistema USA, whose first project is the Abreu Fellows Program. This program “provides tuition-free instruction and a living stipend for outstanding young postgraduate musicians, ‘passionate for their art and for social justice,’ who seek to guide the development of El Sistema programs in the U.S. and beyond. ”

To really appreciate the potential of this movement, watch the videos. The first is of Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra, made up of outstanding high school (yes, high school!) musicians from El Sistema.

Also inspiring is this TED Talk  by Jose Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema.

Photo courtesy of  the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras of Venezuela

Hard Times Come Again No More

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This Thanksgiving day feels a bit melancholy to me. We’re in a time of radical change and the stresses and strains are being felt all over. This song, by Stephen Foster, is from hard times of another era (the great depression of 1850), yet speaks eloquently of bringing empathy to people of all circumstances. That we can do so is something to be truly thankful for.

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) may be America’s first professional song writer. During his most productive years, he composed such American standards as Oh, Susanna (1848), Camptown Races (1850), My Old Kentucky Home (1853) and Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair (1854). Much of his music was written for minstrel shows, where it was performed in blackface. In what was actually an enlightened attitude for his time, Foster instructed that his songs should be performed in a pathetic, rather than a humorous style (pathetic meaning “to engender compassion”). During this time, he also eliminated dialect from his lyrics and stopped referring to his music as “plantation songs”, preferring the term “American melodies”.

Biographical information drawn from the University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

A Cautionary Tale

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Camp Scorpion

Joe Pug told this story onstage at the fall Strawberry Music Festival, about a conversation he had not long ago with Steve Earle. Seems Joe was strolling around backstage with an unlit cigarette tucked behind his ear.

Steve (pointing at cigarette): You better quit those things if you want to last 20 or 30 years in this business.

Joe: I know I should, but I just love it so much.

Steve: Yeah, I felt the same way about heroin.

Strike Up the Band

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Jacob and the Baritone Horn

My son, Jacob, attends Sierra Waldorf School, in Jamestown, CA. Music has been a part of his curriculum since first grade. They started on wooden pentatonic flutes (watch Bobby McFarrin demonstrate the power of the pentatonic scale), then moved on to the C scale flute and recorder.

This year, in 5th grade, they started band. At their first class, band teacher Mic Harper (a volunteer – go Mic!) picked out which instruments would make up the 5th grade band and then sat down with the kids to decide who would play what. Jacob, of course, picked one that none of us had ever heard of. He called me that afternoon, very excited. “I’m going to play the baritone”, he told me. “That’s great”, I said. “Baritone what?”

Turns out that the baritone horn (known in the band world simply as the baritone) has been a staple in American brass bands for more than a century. Smaller than a tuba, it is easily confused with the euphonium (I’ll never make that mistake again). There is a 3/4 size version for first time students but Mic felt that Jacob could handle the full size instrument. She even found one that he could borrow for the rest of the school year!

It was only last week that the entire class had their instruments and lessons could begin in earnest. The baritone has a mellow sound, which Jacob has put to good use playing the three notes he has learned so far. As his regular teacher said, the classroom sounds like a flock of happy geese during band lesson.

Jacob has been around music all his life. I’ve always tried to impress on him that music is made by people, not by the stereo or the radio. I hope that though his musical education, he will feel a connection with other musicians as speakers of a common language.

To hear a solo performance, click the player below.

Revival

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Birch Lake

Birch Lake

Sunday mornings at Strawberry Music Festival involves a lot of walking.  First thing after crawling out of my sleeping bag is to hoof it down to Music Meadow to do the “Strawberry Stroll”, during which you stand in line with a couple of hundred fellow Strawberians, waiting to lay out blankets, tarps and chairs for the day.  The gates open at 7 am and by 7:30 we’re all situated and headed back to our camps.

Since it’s Sunday, I’ll grab another blanket and head on down to Birch Lake, for the Revival that starts at 9 am.  Revival is a long-standing tradition at Strawberry and it’s often a challenge for the musicians who enjoyed the “Strawberry Way” late into the evening the night before.  Many bluegrass festivals have a gospel show on Sunday mornings but that doesn’t quite describe the Revival.

Rather than an invocation, we start with a story, often told by Strawberry’s resident storyteller, B.Z. Smith.  Whatever the subject, these stories always provoke a profound sense of gratitude and togetherness among the several hundred souls gathered there on the grass.  And then the music begins.

It’s a different feeling from the main stage at Music Meadow.  Bands that blazed though their sets the night before play with a bit more thoughtfulness (or so I imagine).  And, yes, there are more gospel numbers and they are welcomed.  The paid ticket holders have been here for three days now, the volunteers one or two days more.  Just about everyone is in need of a little revival to make it through the last day of the festival.

The closing act is the Del McCoury Band.  He and his band, including his sons on mandolin and banjo, are dressed in suits and ties, as they are for all their shows.  This year, Del is celebrating his 70th birthday and 50th anniversary playing bluegrass music.  At this announcement, he receives a prolonged standing ovation from a crowd that looks much different from those in his native North Carolina but  who are no less appreciative.

One of the songs performed by Del McCoury that morning is the gospel standard, Get Down On Your Knees and Pray, performed in this video at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, in 2002.  I’m here to tell you, Del hasn’t lost a step or a note in the past seven years.  Just imagine yourself listening to those harmonies under the birch trees on a cool September morning in the Sierras.