Extra-Sistema Models in Venezuela

Hello to all! So, I will write a few final blog posts from back in Chicago, where I arrived without problems on Saturday. My final few days in Caracas were quite surreal, saying goodbye to everyone and having a few nostalgic moments. More final reflections to come in the next post.

So, although I had been in Venezuela mostly to learn about El Sistema, I also have observed some other models of music education that I think are interesting to mention. These include the music schools Mozarteum and Jose Angel Lamas. Both include either current or former El Sistema professors, but are outside of El Sistema pedagogy and funding. They offer different perspectives and some critiques of El Sistema.

The Mozarteum is a school I visited back in September. Founded in 2001 by violinist Ruben Caceres, the school is located in a lovely 4-story brick building in the Las Mercedes neighborhood of Caracas. The students, around 200, study their instrument (they offer strings-but not double bass-, piano and horn) with private teachers and perform chamber music. The focus of the school is to prepare young musicians to take auditions and study in conservatories abroad. The school administrators told me they felt they were preparing more integral musicians by exposing the students to famous solo repertoire and chamber music, as well as understanding music history and theory. The critique is that El Sistema is so orchestra-based, children lose other aspects important to make them integral musicians. Also, the quantity of orchestra rehearsal makes it impossible for them to find time to practice outside. The Mozarteum also offers competitive language scholarships in English, French and German, further helping to prepare students to study abroad. Everything functions through private donations.

I recently visited the Music School Jose Angel Lamas, Venezuela's oldest conservatory. Some pictures of the building follow:





A choir rehearses and a saxophonist practices

Jose Angel Lamas is located in an ancient house in the historic district of Caracas, not far from the presidential palace and the Plaza Simon Bolivar. Once a nice neighborhood (as true of so many in Caracas), this area has not been well maintained and is notorious after dark.

The Jose Angel Lamas Music School is named after one of Venezuela's first composers (he lived 1775-1814) and was founded in 1881, making it Venezuela's oldest artistic institution, inaugurated the same year as the Teatro Municipal, or the municipal theater, of Caracas. The school offers free classes in most instruments, voice, folk singing and folkloric instruments such as bandolin and cuatro. There are theory classes, choirs, and a symphonic band. Students can study there for 10 years to receive the equivalent of a musical high school diploma in Venezuela, however, this degree is recognized abroad as a Bachelor's degree.

The school is dependent on the Ministry of Education and is the center where musical curriculums are created for the rest of the country. I was told by the feisty and fascinating director, Rosa (who is one of the most famous symphonic band directors in the country) that the school, which is physically falling apart (see photos from above), holds no interest for a government that prefers El Sistema as a social program. The school, she told me, is always struggling for funds, and it also provides free musical education to the students. The Orquesta Sinfonica de Venezuela, Venezuela's first professional orchestra, was created at the school in 1930, as well as the Orfeon, the first choir, making its historical value evident.

These two musical institutions provide more traditional conservatory-like education to music students, but also offers them musical communities through ensemble practice. Many of the professors at both schools either currently or formerly teach in El Sistema, so they are not mutually exclusive, some students in El Sistema come to these schools for private lessons or play in their ensembles. Their different focus causes them to be at odds with El Sistema in terms of philosophy and funding. The decrepit physical condition of Jose Angel Lamas struck me as really tragic due to its historical importance and current role as curriculum innovator in basic music education in Venezuela.

Visit to Merida

This is the nucleo in Merida, capital of Merida State


Wow, it's been over a month and so much has happened! Apologies for lack of entries, but hopefully I'll get caught up within the next 2 weeks, or, before I go back to the U.S. (I'll be back May 1st to Chicago). Since I last wrote, Sebastian visited and we went to Merida (I had been there in November briefly) for research for me and to Isla de Margarita for vacation. Then, I was whisked off to Ecuador for a Fulbright regional enhancement seminar for a week, where they pulled together all the researchers in the Andrean countries (in this case, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela). We presented on our research, talked a lot and had a ton of fun.

But back to March. My visit to Merida was a whirlwind orchestra tourism time, including a concert conducted by my good friend Carlos (who just got a job and left Caracas for Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) and visits to various nucleos in the region. There are 14 in Merida state, and many are doing very interesting things. I'll comment on two, I went to both in what was probably one of my best days in Venezuela.

Merida is one of the few places in Venezuela that currently has an orchestra program in a jail. This should be prefaced by a brief introduction to Venezuelan jails. Prisons in Venezuela are notorious for being almost entirely lawless, inmates are often able to smuggle in guns and drugs, and create their own gangs and form hierarchical networks of loyalties. A few weeks ago there was a gang fight that broke out in a jail and 14 people died. If they have weapons, why stay in jail? Most of them would have no where to go if they broke out, and in prison they get free meals. Criminals of all different sorts are thrown together.

The prison orchestra program (now almost 3 years old in Venezuela) is challenging these relationships and creating new opportunities and skills for the inmates. I went one morning to the program in Merida, which currently functions 9-11am and 2-4pm, where inmates receive group classes and have rehearsal. The program in Merida has a space inside the jail with some individual trailers for music lessons, everyone else practices in hallway spaces. Alejandro, the oboe professor there, had 2 students but just received 2 more new oboes the day I went, so was initiating others. He said that he had seen remarkable progress in the men in the program; over time they increased their ability to focus and concentrate, and were developing teamwork skills. The orchestra has 50 or so members overall, all men. Alejandro mentioned that he has had trouble retaining students because they make parole.

One of the students I taught (always under close supervision by guards and the other teachers) had had his shoes stolen the day before, so was barefoot. He was the most advanced student, having played for almost a year. He had been in prison 8 years, but was hoping to get out in a few months. What would he do after prison? He wanted to keep playing the oboe.

When I left the prison, I jumped on a bus for two hours the opposite direction into the Andes, the region called the Paramo (technically this is the altitude that is above the tree line but below the snow line). The ride was spectacularly beautiful, winding through small Andean towns with colonial architecture and signs boasting traditional artisan wares and trout fishing. I arrived to Mucuchies, at 3000M, to teach the two oboe students at the nucleo there. I met with the director, Roraima, a woman who had been instrumental in the development of the nucleo as well as involved in El Sistema for 25 years. She was convinced that her work is making a difference in the lives of children, of the 6000 residents of the municipality, there were 360 children in El Sistema programs. They use a variety of spaces, from the Casa de la Cultura to a local school, and sports arena. She said that one of the largest struggles they have had is to create a musical culture in this part of the Andes, and has worked to make parents understand the importance music can play in their childrens' personal development. I proceeded to spend a few hours teaching two young and very talented students-the altitude made it difficult for me to play, but they huffed right along. It was quite the day!

My day in Carora

So, my day in Carora was so special, unique and important to my research I will dedicate a whole blog entry to it. I arrived in Carora-about 1.5 hours from Barquisimeto, on this twisty highway with lots of roadside goats (both alive, and for sale as meat) and little cachapa stands (these are sweet corn pancakes, folded in half and filled with cheese, meat, etc)-to meet Yuyita, the mother of my good oboist friend Fernando. Her husband is the director of the theater in Carora, and she had also worked there for many years, and the whole family is intimately involved in the music world. After a quick coffee, where we discussed the 10,000 things we should do during the day, she whisked me off to the Fundacion Alirio Diaz, the foundation created after the famous guitar player. One of the greatest guitar players of the 20th century was indeed at home (the Fundacion is a museum space as well as his personal quarters), and I got to meet him (picture above).

Historical note: (where do I start this?). So, why is Carora important? Carora is a small town that is known in Venezuela for producing great artists and intellectuals. It is the town where Juan Martinez founded the Casa de la Cultura in 1965, the first of its kind in Venezuela, which functioned as just that-a space where people could take dance, learn a musical instrument, or play chess. Carorans told me that they remembered fondly going there after school, because that was where everyone went, just to hang out, even if they didn't have class. It currently doubles as the city's nucleo for El Sistema. Martinez, beyond being a musical organizer, was also involved in local leftist politics, where he heard about (here goes!) Jorge Peña's youth orchestra project in La Serena, Chile, and what had happened with the coup (Peña was killed, and his colleagues were looking to flee). Martinez invited three of them to Carora-Sergio Miranda, Pedro Vargas and Hernan Jerez. I had heard about this in Chile, and some of this story had begun to unravel in Caracas, as Juan Martinez's son, Jaime, is a prominent oboist here.

So when I arrive to Carora, I am greeted with an exclamation that Venezuela's first youth orchestra was founded in Carora (as opposed to in Caracas) and presented with a huge folder full of newspaper clippings from the 1970s and 80s, so as to prove it. Astonishing, no?

I think there are a few things that have happened here. In the interviews I conducted there (the widows of Jerez and Martinez, as well as children and grandchildren, are still in Carora, and active in the music world. Jerez's widow works at the nucleo, and his son teaches there) and the clippings, I have no doubt that the Chileans in Carora were fundamental in the development of an orchestra program there, implementing their previous model in Chile. However, date-wise, Abreu's first orchestra began at roughly the same time (a few months earlier). I think the two projects bounced ideas off each other, and the clippings recognize the importance of both projects. I felt that Carorans are offended from not having been included in Tocar y Luchar, the emblematic El Sistema documentary, and the influence of these Chileans not recognized.

A poster from an anniversary of the orchestras in Carora

Beyond their work with the orchestra, Jerez is also considered one of the founders of Venezuela's oboe school, he was one of two first teachers to form students that are today's great oboists. Many people shared me this anecdote about him: Jerez arrived to Carora (alone, his family came some months later) dressed as was the style in Santiago in a full suit and tie, into 40C plus weather, and arrived from the bus terminal to walk the entire length of the city at 1 o'clock pm heat. Jerez also traveled regularly to teach in Barquisimeto, the oboists of the Sinfonica there studied with him for over 20 years. Werners, the current principal oboist of the orchestra, has recently resuscitated one of Jerez's former projects-growing and harvesting cane to make reeds. Jerez also started a lutier workshop to build and fix musical instruments-they told me, not unlike the project in Chile, that the orchestra's first instruments were made out of scrap wood, furniture, and whatever they could get their hands on.

Because of Carora's early role in the development of El Sistema (although it should be noted that there were other projects in the interior-everything outside of Caracas is the interior here-founded in the 1975-6 time period), and Martinez's greater cultural work, the nucleo in Carora that has grown out of the original project is considered a foundation, meaning that it is partially sponsored by private funds and has more autonomy from El Sistema than some of the other nucleos. For example, in music theory class it is required that all children learn quatro (four-stringed small guitar) as a base instrument (where others may learn, say, piano).

Tribute to Chile and Peña: on the wall in the Casa de la Cultura, a poster of the documentary on Peña made in Chile a few years back.

Really interesting stuff. I also got observe an orchestra rehearsal, and attend a small baroque chamber music concert, where Jerez's grandson played oboe. I returned to Barquisimeto at night, and spent all day Saturday with Julian's experimental oboe studio. He has developed a very unique philosophy on education, and has produced some of the country's best and youngest oboists. I might save my notes on that for those interested, though!

Trip To Barquisimeto

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's already mid-March, these last two months have overall been much better (and gone by much faster) than the first 4. I took another interesting trip, this time to Barquisimeto, the capital of Lara State (those of you following Venezuelan politics may know that Lara is getting a lot of news lately because the governor Henri Falcon just left the PSUV and it's been a scandal), and the neighboring city of Carora. Carora gets its own entry because the day was just that exciting.

Anyways, I traveled to Barquisimeto with Pietro, an Italian cellist who is also studying El Sistema. When I got there, we were immediately whisked to a vegan restaurant (yes, I did mean that) for lunch, which included fresh unsweetened fruit juices, an entree of a vegan version of Venezuelan pan de jamon, this traditional ham filled bread (but here made with soy), and cane-sweetened pies. I spent 3 days in the nucleo in Barquisimeto, seeing rehearsals and spending time with oboists.

This is the "compote" orchestra, where the smallest kids start their violin playing. They were about 3-5 years old, and played us a few songs. Beyond being adorable, the instructors told us that throughout the years they have been able to lower the age of when the kids start, and that as the program has gone on they learn more quickly-skills that used to take 1.5 years to teach now take only a year. One of the things I've seen a lot in nucleos is the necessity for improvisation-inventing and developing new curricula depending on the needs of the students.

One of the things Barquisimeto is most known for (besides being the birthplace of Dudamel) is its special needs music education program, the first in the country (since 1995). They have done an amazing job at developing curriculum for kids with all different kinds of needs, including transcribing music in braille to play in orchestra, and creating the famous "coro de manos blancos", or white hand choir. I wrote about them from my trip to Falcon. In Barquisimeto I was able to see a presentation of all the different special needs musical groups, which was being done for other professors from the state to work on creating programs there. It was really compelling and touching, and made me think of this: one of El Sistema's taglines is "hacemos inclusión a través de la música", we include through music, which previously I always associated with social class. However, these special needs kids made me reevaluate that, as the opportunity they have to study music allows them to be included in countless ways, and is such an amazing opportunity for their personal development.

The presentation included various recorder choir, percussion groups, bell choirs, piano performances and the Coro de Manos Blancos. Below is a video of a very special quintet, of blind young men who arrange Venezuelan melodies for 5 voices and various instruments (they played mandolin, quatro, and tambor while singing), and also compose their own music. Their musical abilities were quite astonishing, and here is a video of that.

I also went to a rehearsal and concert of the professional orchestra of Lara, the Orquesta Sinfonica de Lara. The oboists of the orchestra were the original founders, and this orchestra grew from the first youth orchestra of Barquisimeto, founded by a cellist who worked with Abreu. Ever since, Barquisimeto has been known throughout Venezuela as being a musical center. Also interestingly, these oboists studied with Hernan Jerez, the Chilean who worked with Peña in La Serena and fled to Venezuela with the coup. This story in my next entry.

Trip to Los Llanos

I thought I would post some pictures from my trip to Los Llanos, Venezuela's plains (there are more on Facebook, should anyone want to look there). I traveled with my friend Danielle who had just arrived in Caracas, and we met fellow Fulbright friends on the tour. We arrived a day early to Barinas, the jumping off point of our tour, and Chavez's homeland. I recently read that he very much has the characteristics of a llanero, a cowboy of Los Llanos. Los Llanos has amazingly diverse ecosystems, where grazing cows and horses share watering holes with capybaras (the world's largest rodents), turtles, caymans, piranas, and all sorts of different bird species. Danielle and I went on early morning runs, where we saw an elusive anteater (he was huge!), we went on safaris, pirana fishing, anaconda hunting, a riverboat ride, and horseback riding. It was quite the adventure.

There are some capybaras in the background!

In Barinas, "Chavez, te amo-Chavez, I love you"

A picture from the Carnaval parade in Guanare

This is the church of the Virgen of Coromoto, Venezuela's patron saint. It was huge, and sort of looks like a parking lot from outside. It's also in the middle of nowhere. Apparently on this spot the Virgen appeared to the indigenous people and told them to convert to catholicism.

Since then, it's been back to Caracas to teach and watch old videos. It's the 35th anniversary of El Sistema, so there have been a lot of excellent concerts-Dudamel was here, as was Claudio Abbado. In other news, I will most probably be back in Chicago with May, to work with the People's Music School in creating more El Sistema-like orchestras in Chicago (right now, there's the YOURS orchestra, with which I taught last summer). There are a lot of questions to answer before I go, but I think I will be very ready to return to the comfort and familiarity of everything there. Upcoming things here should include going to Barquisimeto, a hugely musical city, and then, Sebastian's visit.

January in Caracas and Trip to Falcón

Hello everyone! First and foremost, I apologize for being a delinquent blog writer. I of course have intended to write more frequently. Here's a quick summary of the last 2 months: Christmas in Germany was wonderful, with Sebastian and his family, and visit from my dad, Beth and Denny. It all went by too quickly, and I was again back in Caracas. I hit the ground running with a meeting with Eduardo Mendez, the executive director of El Sistema, who was very helpful in putting me in touch with a lot of people. My first week back also involved going to two concerts that Dudamel was here directing, which were quite fun. By the second concert word had gotten out that he was here, and me getting tickets involved a crazy raffle-like wait list distribution.

I have delved a bit more into the research part of my project, which I have conceptualized in two parts-understanding how things happen today and collecting pedagogical and methodological tools, and history. As far as the first is concerned, I have begun to collect documents and a lot of methods, especially for the oboe. For the second, the orchestra foundation has an audiovisual archive from the first orchestras' first concerts. This has been really interesting as a means of seeing the development of the orchestras here, and I go to the archive a few times a week to watch old videos. The fashions are great, too. I also have had some very interesting interviews.

The end of January I traveled to the state of Falcón. I meant to stay 4 days, but ended up staying a week, which was wonderful! I went with my friends Carlos and Randall, who were conducting and playing piano with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Falcón that week, Carlos is finishing his Masters in Conducting here in Caracas. They are both Colombian and were good travel partners.

I spent most of my afternoons at the central núcleo in Coro, a beautiful colonial style city that was the first capital of Venezuela. The núcleo there has 750 kids in 6 orchestras, choir and music initiation courses, so there was a lot to observe. They also work with the region´s special needs kids in a deaf-mute choir, that will translate the choir's songs into signs. I learned how to sign United States and Chicago in Spanish Sign Language. In Coro as in most everywhere (ok, everywhere outside Caracas) there is electricity rationing at least once a day for a few hours, which meant that sometimes rehearsals were postponed (not any natural light in the rehearsal spaces) or students took over the courtyards to practice or receive lessons.



I also observed many oboe lessons, spending days with Pedro, an oboist in the Sinfonica and the professor in Coro. I ended up staying in his apartment with his wife, a bassoonist, Ricardo, the choir director, and Eduardo the tubist of the Sinfonica. They were absolutely wonderful people! After my first day in the núcleo I went with Pedro to watch the Sinfónica rehearsal, where I was invited to play in the concert for Carlos' recital.

These were my sectionmates for the concert, I also accompanied them to the other places they teach.

Pedro has collected tons of oboe methods and teaching materials, that he was generous enough to share with me. One of the methods is a beginning oboe book in Spanish that I am now using with my students in San Antonio. Today I taught and they were excited to have homework. Imagine that!

I got to travel to 3 other nucleos outside of Coro: in La Vela, Punto Fijo and San Luis. These are the three oboe students I got to teach in La Vela, a small port city outside of Coro.

The first picture of the blog is from San Luis, a small town in the mountains about 2 hours from Coro by bus on windy road. I went with Pedro and a group of musicians from the Orquesta Juvenil in Coro, Sunday morning, 6am, to teach. (The musicians in Coro that I met lead an impressively busy lifestyle-in the mornings they teach in the penitentiary orchestras, in the afternoon at the nucleo and orchestra rehearsals in the evening. Weekends are spent teaching at the nucleos outside of Coro.) We went on a little bus (provided by the orchestras) up into the hills to San Luis, where a new nucleo is being opened in a school. There are 500 kids enrolled and 50 instruments, so they are letting most of the kids start by passing around the instruments. We had 10 kids and 1 oboe, and this was the first lesson for most of them. The kids were very excited both about the oboe and about me, as I was the first foreigner many of them had ever met. After 3 hours of teaching sol-la-si-do on the oboe, I left the classroom to be attacked by a gaggle of girls who interrogated me about me. They were adorable.

I returned from my trip to lots of activity and visitors in Caracas. I also just got back from spending Carnival in Los Llanos, the Venezuelan plains, which will be the subject for my next entry. Hopefully I will post in the next few days. Abrazos a todos!

Reflections on the first term

Term as in trimester? Third of my year?

I thought it would be good for me to sit and think a bit about how I would summarize my research and my experience in Venezuela thus far. It's funny to stop and think about which are the things that stand out the most what specifically I have learned. Also, as time goes on here, I grow more accustomed to being here, make better friends, meet more people, and grow more comfortable, so I would also say that things are more positive the longer I've been here (Sebastian would probably say that I've cried considerably less in the last month than the first month, for example).

So, research part first. There is so much I still don't know, it's quite overwhelming. It feels good, though, that I have a lot of questions to still find the answers to. Thus far, I have mostly focused on being an oboist within El Sistema-most of the people I have connected with are oboists, and I have observed many lessons and sectionals, and have branched out from there. I realized at the David Walter masterclasses a few weeks ago, that I showed up and knew all the oboists. I am really thankful to feel part of that community. We can all be crazy about reeds together. So the questions I have dealt with include: What is the process of choosing the oboe as an instrument? What kind of repertoire is studied? What are lessons like, and how is that different from the US/Chile? How does an oboe student within El Sistema progress on their instrument, and what kind of challenges and demands do they face (and why/how is that different from US style instrument teaching)?

I'll maybe answer about the most interesting questions here. (And save my treatise on reeds for whoever is actually really interested!) So, one of the biggest differences between the styles of music education-conservatory (like the US) and El Sistema is El Sistema's emphasis on group practice. By the time kids start the oboe here, they have usually had a few years of choir and recorder practice and basic music theory. As they begin to learn their instrument of choice (and aptitude), they do so within an ensemble-even before picking up their instruments, the kids get into a routine of sitting with their sectionmates in oboe/woodwind sectionals/full orchestra rehearsals and singing the rhythms and notes of the music. The beginning oboists spend time just playing the reed and learning to hold the instrument, together. They eventually do also have private lessons, but spend many more weekly hours with their peers, struggling through orchestral parts together. Also, orchestral practice starts almost immediately (this is one of the big differences between conservatory/El Sistema education)-the learning of the basics comes in the context of learning orchestral parts.

In the case of the oboe, beginning orchestral rep is super super difficult. Learning to play a scale on the oboe can take months, but the orchestra parts demand it right away. This is something I have dealt with a lot with the kids I teach. This creates a challenge for the kids to learn melodies and make group music, but can also be frustrating and discouraging. (Actually, one of the oboists here wrote his undergrad thesis on how what is taught in year 1 of playing in orchestra is extremely advanced and does not correspond to what is taught in 1 year of playing the oboe.) All of the older oboists I have met, when asked about their initial repertory challenge, look upon it with a nostalgia-this difficulty was one of many they deal with in orchestral playing, and now, in comparison, many things are easier. (The argument against this difficult repertoire is, I think, that it ignores some basic technique in favor of teaching notes, which can create poor habits-something I've also dealt with while teaching).

This is the Teatro Teresa Carreño (she was a famous pianist), where I have spent a lot of my time going to concerts.
Me and Carlos

How would I summarize Venezuela so far? Nice welcoming people? Tropical fruits? Living in Caracas is very challenging, and sometimes I despair in feeling incapable of confronting its quotidian difficulties. (No water, gunshots outside my apartment, etc). I know that there are things here that I will never get used to, and things that will always be difficult. As time goes on, though, I feel better supported by the people I know here, which is a great comfort-I have met a lot of wonderful and interesting people, and look forward to continuing to getting to know them next year. I am also making a concerted effort to find beautiful things and places within and around the city, and like some of those very much (the field where I take yoga, for example, or el Avila, the national park, where I hike on weekends).


This week I was vacationing a bit, as most activities were done for the year, and Thursday I went to Parque Nacional Morrocoy, in the state of Falcon. Morrocoy is a nature reserve of islands, islets and cays with lovely tropical beaches. We took a spectacular motor boat ride to one of the islands, where we spent the day snorkeling (which was a favorite childhood activity of mine. So much fun!), dissecting coconuts, and lying around on the beach.
The beach Me with a cocada in a coconut!

With friends! Left-breakfast of arepas post-party in cabin near San Antonio

Right-dinner post-concert with music friends

It's humbling to think about all the things I have left to do here-learn much more about the history of El Sistema and its methodology, while traveling to different places to observe orchestras and classes. I am very very excited to get to go to Germany so soon, to see Sebastian and my family. It will be my first German Christmas. I'll be back the first days of January to Caracas to organize myself for the months ahead. Many holiday greetings and warm wishes to all!