“Eighteen students from Massachusetts have been selected to perform with [Gustavo] Dudamel as part of this summer’s inaugural National Take a Stand Festival, a prestigious music camp hosted by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in partnership with Bard College and the Longy School of Music of Bard College,” writes Malcolm Gay in Wednesday’s (4/19) Boston Globe. “The all-expenses-paid festival will bring together some 100 pupils from programs across the country inspired by Venezuela’s national music education and youth orchestra program, El Sistema. After a week of intense study, [the musicians will perform] with Dudamel at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on July 22…. Gretchen Nielsen, vice president of educational initiatives at the LA Philharmonic, said Boston has become ‘a hotbed for this work.’ That’s due in part to the New England Conservatory’s now-defunct Sistema Fellows Program…. The local mantle has since been taken up by Longy, whose Sistema Side by Side initiative unites students from the state’s dozen or so El Sistema-type programs with Longy musicians in rehearsals and concerts…. El Sistema-inspired programs have proliferated in no small part because of the Venezuelan-born Dudamel, who as artistic and music director for the LA Philharmonic is one of El Sistema’s most celebrated graduates.”
Posted April 21, 2017
Pictured: Scarlet Falcon, a violinist studying at Boston String Academy, will attend this summer’s National Take a Stand Festival in Los Angeles. Photo by Barry Chin/Boston Globe
