On planning, repertoire and curriculum in El Sistema

One more generalization that I had been a bit uncomfortable with is the idea of curriculum.  Before coming here, I felt that in applying the idea of an El Sistema curriculum and a pre-designed repertoire list in the US would be like admiring the beautiful freedom of a bird and then starting to look for a golden cage to capture that freedom at home.

In the past weeks in Venezuela, I found I was not that lost in my idealism.  The word for curriculum (pensum) has come up just a couple of times in conversations, but I have heard a lot of "academic planning".  It makes sense.  In planning, the focus is on the larger goal. A curriculum gets easily caught in the procedures and the rules.

Here in Venezuela, academic planning starts in the local núcleos, then at a regional level, and then at a national level (I'll write more about organizational structures later).  Each local núcleo can create their own strategies to reach the common goal.  And everyone can assess if any particular strategy is working or not, and if not, it can be easily fixed of substituted by a strategy that has proven successful elsewhere.

In the case of the repertoire that El Sistema has been famous for, it turns out that there is no manual, mandate or official list of repertoire.   It gets determined on a local level, and local núcleo directors choose by following trends and examples from other núcleos or from the national selection ensembles in Caracas, like the Simón Bolivar or the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestras.

My feeling is that the challenge is not creating a sound ideal curriculum, but creating a solid network based on human contact, gut feeling and support to others' efforts. With this, conversations about goals, strategies and respectful assessment will make this movement grow rapidly and strongly throughout the World.

On El Sistema generalizations

When asking the question "What is El Sistema?", or "What is its essence?" I noticed people usually have their mindsets framed in what they are familiar with, and that leads to certain generalizations. Preset ideas of methods, curriculum, schooling, arts policy, and many others come to mind.  I am uneasy with the idea of generalizations. Early on I noticed that detaching from the usual U.S. generalizing mindsets would be a big challenge.  I understand they are sometimes a strategy to give order to our thoughts, but I would think that in order to understand the essence of El Sistema the first step would be not to try to fit it into any of our regular generalizations.  Think out of the box.  Now, really, get out of the box.

A couple of weeks ago, José Antonio Abreu explained to us –the Abreu Fellows–  the origin of the "El Sistema" brand, which has to do more with Venezuelan government bureaucracy than its organizational structure. Furthermore, Abreu called it a permanent ser no-ser todavía –"not-yet-being being".  That idea alone may define the essence of El Sistema....but even then...one still has to think outside of that box.   As we have been getting deeper in exploring the Venezuelan Orchestra System, I realize that not even the ser no-ser-todavía statement cannot be taken as a generalization of how things work here.  


In my next blogs I will try describe with examples and try to explain our expericences.  This trip started on Febrary 18th with the 10 Fellows in Caracas, and now continued in the Guárico province, right in the center of Venezuela, where along with 3 more of the Fellows, we have visited multiple programs and met amazing people, young musicians and leaders.  (I hope I can blog more frequently, sometimes internet is spotty here, and most times, we are out and about.  No time to stop and turn on the computer!)

I don't think I will come up with the right words to give a definite answer to the question of what is the essence of El Sistema.  For one thing, because any example that I describe here will be soon outdated.  Things evolve freely and fast around here.  And then, as much as we are trying to catch as much of the essence of El Sistema in Guárico, any idea that I write here which may be seen as a generalization, will be challenged by what we find in the next province we visit.

Political Spectacle: El Sistema Seminarios, policy and decision-making.

On our first week in Venezuela, and among the excitement of finally being here as Abreu Fellows, I have also had time and inspiration to reflect on ideas I've had for a couple of weeks now. Political spectacle is a subject I have thought –and blogged– about before, in relation to El Sistema and arts policy in general.

Last week, our last in Boston, we had a lecture by Ricardo Hausmann, Director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, and former Minister of Planning of Venezuela (1992-1993). One of his anecdotes that day reminded me of the political spectacle phenomenon in relation to El Sistema: Dr. Hausmann had to deal with big budget cuts in the Venezuelan government, after the Gulf War set the prices of oil on a downward spiral. Part of his task was to meet with each of the high government officials to ask for recommendations on where to make cuts in their ministries' budgets. When it was the time to speak with Dr. Jose Antonio Abreu, he called Hausmann at the last minute to cancel the budget-cut meeting due to an emergency at his office, but he sent him tickets to a concert that evening. In Dr. Hausmann's own words to us, after the concert he just didn't have the heart to make any cuts in Abreu's budget.

This story sounded familiar to me.  For instance, I had been always curious on the purposes and effects of the El Sistema "seminarios" (intensive camps), specifically the ones I helped organize as a host in Guatemala, in the late 1990s. Besides from empowering young musicians and raising the bar of an otherwise stale ensemble, these seminarios also had a huge impact on some of our policy makers and powerbrokers in the audience. Government officials, sponsors, and even parents immediately realized that their commitment to this cause was essential to the cause, and potentially favorable to their own interests.

People usually argue that playing that card –the political spectacle card– leads to compromising the educational and social benefits of a program.  If you present the final product of an intensive seminar it looks and sounds impressive, but skeptics say that this is an incomplete educational process that disfigures traditional music pedagogy.  Moreover, they argue, there is no immediate way to prove that the seminario will lead to the promised social/human development outcomes.

On the other hand, Murray J. Edelman (Symbolic Uses of Politics) argues that in creating policy, instrumental evidence (assessments, surveys, scholarly research) don't matter much.  Rather, what's important to policy makers is to give the appearance that they have done something.  Edelman calls this symbolic policy.  He argues that the people, the spectators, consume symbols that have an emotional value (anxiety over problems, reassurance, patriotism or even revange).  In his 1988 book Constructing the Political Spectacle, Edelman argues that the constant use of symbolic policy is the main reason why it is impossible to trace the the outcomes and consequences of political decisions and policy-making.  Come think about it, most policy, as Edelman argues, comes as a result of power brokering and negotiation.

In other words, it seems like decision-making could depend more on touching someone's heart (the policy makers themselves, or the spectators they serve) than in presenting hard evidence of beneficial outcomes.  As El Sistema has demonstrated here in Venezuela and in other countries, support ultimately comes from institutions ran by human beings.  Political spectacle is a powerful tool of El Sistema, one that has to be carefully designed.  A balance has to be kept not to fall into good 'ol cheap political circus (as many have had), nor to turn it into the usual un-accessible (elitist) classical music program.

"Austria came to learn closely about the national orchestra system"

Published by the Bolivarian News Agency (ABN)

Caracas, Feb 12th. ABN.- In order to strenghten the existing cultural links between Austria and Venezuela, and to get to learn in detail the teaching methods of the Venezuelan National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras and Choirs, and group of Vienese personalities headed by Austria's Minister of Education, Arts and Culture, professor Claudia Schmied.

(read the whole article, in Spanish)

Austria vino a conocer de cerca al Sistema Nacional de Orquesta

Caracas, 12 Feb. ABN.- Para estrechar los vínculos culturales ya existentes entre Austria y Venezuela y conocer de cerca los métodos de enseñanza musicales del Sistema Nacional de Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, llegaron a Caracas varias personalidades vienesas, encabezadas por la ministra de Educación, Arte y Cultura de Austria, profesora Claudia Schmied.

Ver el artículo completo

What's an El Sistema núcleo? Let's start at the very begining/¿Qué es un núcleo en El Sistema? Empecemos por el principio.

I already realized that, like many things in El Sistema, there are many different faces and perspectives to look at it. So this title itself may be seen in many ways. There are many ways to see "the very beginning." But I'll start with the meaning of the word. Not only the obvious Spanish and Latin origin of the word (Here it is: Núcleo [NOO-cleh-oh], spanish for Nucleus: "From Latin, literally 'kernel, inner part,' diminutive of nux, nuc- 'nut'", Webster Dictionary), but its different meanings in other disciplines and try to reflect on that. The word itself, according to the Webster Dictionary, means: "Nucleus: The central and most important part of an object, movement or group, forming the basis for its activity or growth" Webster goes on to define its meaning in "Physics the positively charged central core of an atom, containing most of its mass." I could go into cute metaphors, but I'd rather concentrate on the definition in "Biology a dense organelle present in most eukaryotic cells, typically a single rounded structure bounded by a double membrane, containing the genetic material." Two ideas in these definitions I find fascinating. First, the idea that the núcleo is the center of a movement. Second, the idea that it contains DNA, genetic material. Looking a bit more into biology, it is interesting to see that not only it contains that genetic material, but it also replicates it (with occasional mutations). This replication happens within the núcleo... I mean, the nucleus. Not in the brain or in other larger "central" organ. Thinking back of an El Sistema núcleo and its "genetic material" –the ethos and principles that we have been exploring and discussing about at the Abreu Fellowship program–, I view the role of the núcleos as essential in keeping this movement rooted in communities (the "cells") and its own mutations responding to their needs, to a big extent. But also, my guess is that if the DNA (genetic material) in a cell varies TOO much, to the point that it has nothing similar to the rest of the cells around it, it becomes something else. Or, translated into El Sistema movement, if a núcleo changes its ethos and principles TOO much to adapt to very particular circumstances of the community, it risks becoming something completely different, separating itself from the El Sistema global movement (nothing wrong or condemning about that, but if you don't share ethos and principles, why call yourself "El Sistema-inspired"?) Now what is the El Sistema core DNA? What are the ethos and/or principles like?

Ya me dí cuenta que, como muchas cosas en El Sistema, hay muchas formas de ver sus diferentes frentes y perspectivas. Así que este título en sí mismo puede ser visto de distintas formas. Hay muchas formas de "empezar por el principio". Pero voy a empezar por el significado de la palabra. No sólo el origen en latín (Según el diccionario Webster en inglés: "(...) literalmente semilla, parte interna, diminutivo de nux, nuc-(...)") sino tambien sus diferentes significados en otras disciplinas y luego voy a tratar de reflexionar un poco sobre esto. La palabra misma, deacuerdo con el diccionario Webster en inglés, significa: "Nucleus: La parte central y más importante de un objeto, movimiento o grupo, formando la base para su actividad o crecimiento". Más especificamente, para el diccionario de la Real Academia Española, significa: "Fís. Parte central del átomo, que contiene la mayor porción de su masa, constituida por protones y neutrones, y que posee una carga eléctrica positiva que se corresponde con su número atómico." Podría entrar en metáforas bonitas, pero prefiero concentrarme en esta definición del diccionario Webster en inglés: "Biología un organelo denso presente en la mayoría de células eucarióticas, típicamente una estructura simple y redonda, contenida por una doble membrana, conteniendo el material genético". Dos ideas en estas definiciones me parecen fascinantes. La primera, la idea que un núcleo es el centro de un movimiento. Segundo, la idea que contiene el DNA, el material genético. Siguiendo con la línea de la biología, es interesante notar, que el núcleo no sólo contiene el material genético, sino que tambien lo replica (con ocasionales mutaciones). Esta replicación ocurre dentro del núcleo. No ocurre en el cerebro, o en otro órgano mayor o "central". Regresando a pensar en los núcleos de El Sistema y su "material genético" –el Ethos y principios que ya hemos estado explorando y discutiendo en el programa Abreu Fellows–, veo que el papel que juegan los núcleos es esencial en mantener el movimiento enraizado en las comunidades (o las "células") y sus propias mutaciones respondiendo a sus necesidades, hasta cierto punto. Pero también, me imagino que si el ADN (material genético) en una célula varía MUCHO, al punto que ya no tiene nada similar a las otras células, entonces se convierte en otra cosa. O, traducido al movimiento de El Sistema, si un núcleo cambia MUCHO su ethos y sus principios para adaptarse a circunstancias muy particulares, corre el riesgo de convertirse en otra cosa, separándose así del movimiento global de El Sistema (nada malo o condenable si eso pasara, pero si no se comparten el ethos y los principios, para qué llamarse parte de El Sistema?) Ahora, ¿cuál es el ADN de El Sistema? ¿Cómo son su ethos y principios?