In Monday’s (10/22) Record (Stockton, California), Roger Phillips writes, “Earlier this month in a spacious classroom in south Stockton, accompanied occasionally by the passing wail of a police siren or the roar of a souped-up car, eight fourth-grade students tucked violins under their chins and drowned out the neighborhood noise by playing Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy.’ … The program—a collaboration of Stockton Unified, University of the Pacific, the Stockton Symphony and the United Way—is in the early stages of trying to replicate Venezuela’s 36-year-old El Sistema music instruction program. El Sistema has been credited with sparking major social changes in Venezuela’s ghettos. In Stockton, the program began a year ago with empty cereal boxes, not violins. Those boxes of Kix and Lucky Charms, with paint-stirring sticks glued to them, were stand-ins while Harmony Stockton’s children absorbed the finer points of holding and caring for real violins. Once those lessons had been fully learned and the children had earned the privilege, they were presented with actual violins and bows, and the real fun began. … The adults are hoping that over time, Harmony Stockton will help transform the Marshall community and that the program ultimately will expand to other schools and help bring social change to other underserved neighborhoods in the city.”
Posted October 23, 2012
