In Tuesday’s (11/27) Philadelphia Daily News, Tom Di Nardo writes that thirty-seven years ago, Jose Antonio Abreu began his mission of fighting truancy and juvenile crime with 11 children playing music in a warehouse in Caracas. “Soon the program, El Sistema, spread to villages, where young players could move up to towns, regions and maybe even all the way to the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. … Our version, Play On Philly, is a flourishing model for the future. It began with two visionaries—Stanford Thompson, trumpet player and Curtis Institute graduate who inspires the students as CEO at St. Francis de Sales in West Philadelphia, and philanthropist Carole Haas Gravagno, a former teacher who has supported the arts, especially involving children. They met at a League of American Orchestras [Conference] in Los Angeles, and they immediately realized they had been waiting for each other. … There are 160 students at St. Francis de Sales, with another 85 at Freire Middle School. After their years in these schools, many head to Musicopia, Philadelphia Sinfonia or the Play On Philly youth orchestra, and come back once or twice a week for peer-to-peer mentoring.”
Posted November 27, 2012
