El Sistema in Vermont
Supporting Community Music for Kids!
El Sistema in Vermont – Supporting Community Music for Kids!
As part of our commitment to giving back to the communities we serve, and to foster a love for music among all our children, Vermont Violins has been an active supporter and partner to many string programs serving under-served and financially challenged communities in our region. From Winooski to St. Johnsbury, we have been providing low-cost instruments to help sustain programs that bring violin instruction to schools that are dedicated to enriching the lives of even our states least privileged individuals.
Several of these programs are inspired by a movement that originated in Venezuala over forty years ago: El Sistema, “The System” as conceived by its visionary founder, Maestro José Antonio Abreu. El Sistema brought music to millions of poverty-stricken youngsters in his homeland of Venezuela and later to over 60 countries around the world, including the United States.
Like the power of non-violence, the power of music to build a movement -- to empower children to achieve greatness, and to give hope in a sea of despair -- is palpable and nobody recognized the potential of music as El Maestro, Mr. Abreu. He started with a disappointing start: only a small handful of children answered his call, but even in that lonely garage, he promised the children that their orchestra would achieve greatness and would perform in the world’s greatest music halls. Such an unimaginably large promise he made to this ensemble of kids in 1975. Today, his vision is clear and his marquee orchestra, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra has brought music to many of the great halls and, perhaps more importantly, a great hall will soon be built in Caracas designed by the Los Angeles architect-titan Frank Gehry.
The children Mr. Abreu served were from the inner-city barrios of Caracas, Venezuela where crime and poverty combined to offer dim prospects to the youth of his homeland. Mr. Abreu called them to come and play music according to a set of rules and commitments, “the system.” The arising orchestras met daily under the tireless baton of the 35 year old Maestro. With the success of the first orchestra, El Sistema expanded through a network of hundreds of youth choirs, orchestras and music centers around Venezuela, ultimately reaching at least a million children in his home country alone. From there, his method expanded around the planet.
Even as far as Vermont where two El-Sistema inspired programs have recently started in St. Johnsbury and nearby Sheffield Vermont.
We remember the old hymn:
My life flows on in endless song;
Above Earth’s lamentation,
I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.
The life of José Antonio Abreu used song and music to raise children above the lamentation of the barrios to create a new world for the impoverished youth lucky enough to join El Sistema.
And so it is with great determination that we reach out and partner with several Vermont organizations and schools to provide instruments so that our own children can benefit from Abreu’s legacy.One way we have found success in this partnership is to make available our older rental instruments at very low cost to the participating schools.Burlington’s Integrated Arts Academy, Winooski JFK School, Miller’s Run Elementary School and St. Johnsbury EPIC program have all been recipients of this charitable program.