In Sunday’s (2/26) Los Angeles Times, Mark Swed writes of Venezuela, “Along with baseball and beauty pageants, classical music is one of the country’s greatest passions. … The state-run music education program, which is known as El Sistema and from which Dudamel emerged, is the most extensive, admired and increasingly imitated in the world. One of its nearly 300 music schools for children, or núcleos, is deep in the Venezuelan Amazon, reachable only by boat. Foreign visitors who stream into Caracas to observe El Sistema in action invariably leave Venezuela amazed. I am no exception, having tagged along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for its recent eight-day Caracas Mahler Project residency. Nor were the L.A. Phil musicians, having performed with and coached impressively aspiring younger Venezuelans. … So strong is the Sistema lockbox that this program is equally supported by rich and poor, the political left and right. President Hugo Chávez allots it $100 million a year and regularly promises more. … Dudamel’s international career ultimately is giving the Sistema phenomenon more and more prominence, and that, in turn, is inspiring more and more places to create their own versions of El Sistema.”
Posted February 27, 2012
