Celebrating the Laureate of the Eighth Glenn Gould Prize: A Visit to Caracas

 A Report by Brian Levine

 Many visitors to the Glenn Gould Foundation website will be familiar with El Sistema, the life-transforming system of children’s and youth orchestras developed across Venezuela by the 2008 Glenn Gould Prize Laureate, Maestro José Antonio Abreu.

El Sistema has received massive coverage in the international media recently, both because of its achievements and the fame of its celebrated alumnus, incoming L.A. Philharmonic chef d’orchestre, 27-year-old Gustavo Dudamel. From two profiles (in a single season!) on CBS’s 60 Minutes, to the New York Times, to The Guardian and CNN, El Sistema is a hot story these days.

But this is one of those rare instances in which the media hype is not only fully deserved, but if anything, falls short of the mark in its praise. Nothing really prepares a visitor for what he or she will encounter when they witness this “Venezuelan miracle” firsthand, as I recently had the opportunity to experience it.

Recently, I journeyed to Caracas to help plan next year’s Glenn Gould Prize gala award concert and a host of associated public education, performance and awareness-raising events.

Unlike many visitors I have a bit of history with this remarkable national music education system; my contact with it stretches back almost 15 years when, as Director of Artists and Repertoire at Dorian Recordings, I made this trip on several occasions to oversee our company’s recording sessions with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra (El Sistema’s professional orchestra) under the batons of Maximiano Valdes, Enrique Arturo Diemecke, Canadian Maestra Keri-Lynn Wilson and the late Eduardo Mata. In many ways, this was a visit to see old friends.

But there was a difference this time. On past visits, our recording team would arrive, complete recording sessions and depart. It was only on this visit that I had the chance to see and hear El Sistema in action.

First Views of Caracas

Flying in to the Simón Bolívar Airport from “El Norte,” one is reminded that Venezuela is very much a Caribbean country. The crystal, azure-blue waters glow gem-like in their purity. The airport itself, like many important Venezuelan institutions, takes its name from Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad de Bolívar y Palacios Blanco (1783-1830), the Caracas-born revolutionary who struggled for Latin American independence from Spain and who, to this day is revered as “El Libertador.” Much of the identity of Venezuela is infused with the spirit of independence and love of freedom that Bolívar has come to symbolize.

Caracas, a city of between 4.5 and 5 million people, lies cradled in an oblong valley surrounded by mountains on all sides. Located near the equator, the temperatures range between 25 and 30º C year round. Vegetation is lush, dense and almost alarming in its profusion. The airport is located on the coast, and the city proper lies a number of miles inland and is accessed by a system of highways and tunnels running through the mountains.

Visitors arriving at night will emerge from the tunnels into Caracas and find themselves in what appears to be a wonderland of hundreds of thousands of “stars” shining brilliantly on all sides in a distinctively ethereal shade of blue.

With dawn, however, comes the starkly ironic realization that these “stars” are the lights of the thousands of poor Venezuelans inslums small makeshift (but now permanent) communities that cover the mountainside in an arc around much of the city. Over the years, as these economically disadvantaged communities have become permanently entrenched, their inhabitants have tapped the power grid providing themselves with light and a few of the most basic necessities. Traditionally many of these homes have had no running water, sanitary facilities and, until the advent of El Sistema, that most essential human need, hope. Adults living in these communities often make their way down the mountainside every day to work in the city, and then make the arduous climb back to their homes at day’s end. These barrios (a term, I’m told, that many occupants resent because they feel it disparages their communities as slums, despite the fact that the term simply means “neighbourhood”) have defined the prospects of generations of Venezuelans; they are unsafe, particularly during periods of intense weather, as the world saw in December 1999 when flooding and mudslides killed thousands and left tens of thousands homeless. Gangs, crime, violence and drugs are among the other risks that face children growing up in these neighbourhoods.

Families are under constant stress here. Parents are often absent, struggling to pay for food, and sometimes falling prey to substance dependence or violence themselves. There is a strong temptation to remove children from school at the earliest possible age so that they can contribute to the family income; without hope for the possibility of a better future, many parents don’t see the value of education to their children’s lives. Education provides benefits in a far-off future, but these parents need to struggle for subsistence now. Their children can end up as street peddlers in Caracas, selling candy or toys where risks from traffic, robbery, exposure to drugs or abduction and abuse only increase. With one of the highest murder rates in the Americas, Caracas can be a child’s worst nightmare.

While government programs strive to help, the problems are enormous and cannot be solved overnight, and Caracas struggles with many other challenges simultaneously. The city’s infrastructure is under enormous pressure as its legendary traffic congestion seeks to squeeze the equivalent of watermelons through garden hoses on a daily basis. Caracas bustles and thrives, but can be violent, noisy and hectic. Major building and other projects tend to face delays, cost overruns and organizational problems. There is a resolutely chaotic quality about life in Caracas that natives have come to accept with a shrug but which can baffle the outsider. For all this, I have always found Venezuelans to be hard-working, dedicated, passionate, open, intelligent, and emotionally giving as are few other people in my experience; an Italian woman I meet says she’s fallen in love with the country (“People think we Italians are passionate and open, but the Venezuelans are in a class of their own”). I hear this sentiment echoed time and again by visitors who have been infected by the indomitable spirit, optimism-in-the-face-of-impossible odds, and joie de vivre of the Venezuelan people.

El Sistema was designed by José Antonio Abreu to help build better lives for children in disadvantaged urban enclaves like these as well as rural areas where children face surprisingly similar problems. Amidst so much turmoil, and such long-standing pain, despair and entrenched social dysfunction, the System has produced results that truly are miraculous. It is an inspiring example of a people pulling together, united by a great idea and a man of great spirit, to solve even their most intractable problems.

Hard Work and Harmony

At the core of El Sistema are teaching centres called núcleos where the music education is provided as an after-school program and on Saturdays. I was fortunate enough to visit two núcleos–Núcleo Sarría and Núcleo Rinconada.

On the first day’s visits, and throughout my trip, my host is Rodrigo Guerrero, responsible for International Development at El Sistema. At the age of 30, Rodrigo shows a deep dedication to the ideas of the System. It’s clear that this is more than just a job for him; it’s a calling, it’s hope, it’s the future of his country. With perfect English, a delicately nuanced turn of phrase, striking good looks, and a generous sense of humour, Rodrigo is a perfect advocate for this most ambitious of national projects.

Núcleo Sarría is located in the midst of a disadvantaged neighbourhood where children are at maximum risk. Both núcleos are gated and have security at the entrances: as Rodrigo explains, the security of the children is paramount and the System can only function if it earns the complete trust of parents that their children are being delivered into a safe and nurturing environment. Caretakers who know the names and faces of the children circulate through the núcleo to make sure that all is well.

Parents have little to fear because an almost palpable spirit of love and caring permeates the two núcleos I visited. The music instructors are almost all young, between 19 and 25, as are many of the directors of the núcleos. They are young adults who have passed through El Sistema themselves. Now that they are at university or embarking on professional careers, they might be expected to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the shantytowns of their childhood. But such is not the case: they come back, eager to impart to the next generation the gift that was given to them.

As Rodrigo explains to me, “the System has to remain pure in its goals and true to its mission. To do that, we all need to believe in it with a simple faith that it is right, that each must put back into it the gifts that were given to him or her, and that these children are all our children, and deserve our help.”

Núcleo Sarría takes its name from the neighbourhood it serves. Rodrigo tells me that Sarría is one of the oldest of these hillside communities in Caracas, and dates back over 60 years. Neighbourhoods of this kind start as shantytowns whose inhabitants may have been displaced from or have left rural communities. Often they arrive in the city and assemble a makeshift dwelling where they can from found materials, with no expectation of remaining permanently. But poverty and dashed hope can turn conditions that a person once never imagined being able to endure for long into the grinding normality of everyday life.

We are joined at Sarría by Rafael Elster, the núcleo’s director, who many readers will have heard speak so eloquently when interviewed on the recent profile of El Sistema that appeared on the CBS program 60 minutes.

Rodrigo and Rafael explain how, under the administration of a government foundation called FESNOJIV (the Venezuelan National Foundation of Children’s and Youth Orchestras), children are admitted into El Sistema as early as age two. This is a critical period in early childhood development when many neural pathways are developed that will prove essential in a child’s later intellectual, educational and cognitive development. The early start for admission into the program requires active participation by mothers and fathers who must attend with their toddlers, helping them grasp the basics of rhythm, singing songs with them and absorbing the nurturing group environment of the núcleo. Parental participation encourages and reinforces the family dynamic, gives mothers and fathers a sense of enthusiasm and involvement and pride in their children’s musical progress; this encourages the parents to leave their sons and daughters in the program, a development that has been shown definitively to correlate to children staying in school through the end of high school and on into post-secondary education.

El Sistema has demonstrated conclusively that music education is the gateway to lifelong learning and a better future.

At the next stage, I visit larger groups of three- and four-year-olds in singing circles keeping the beat of their songs with sticks or tambourines. The teachers sit on the floor along with their young charges, in order to remain at eye level with their pupils.

The overall feeling is one of equality and affection–teachers are more like older brothers and sisters than remote authority figures. In another classroom I see a huge ensemble of five-, six- and seven-year-olds in an eighty-member choir and recorder ensemble. Standing straight and tall on bleachers, these children play simply harmonized classical and folk tunes, rounds and canons with superb ensemble and spirit. Then, led by a teacher with a guitar, the children lower their recorders to sing a traditional Venezuelan country song, complete with dramatic gestures, all perfectly coordinated. After this, a beautiful five-year-old girl steps forward from the front row of the choir, turns to face her friends and conducts them with meticulous rhythm and form in a five-minute song, the words of which the ensemble render perfectly and by heart. The lessons that the emerging science of neuroplasticity is teaching us about the incredible developmental powers of a child’s brain in the first “critical” period of maturation finds a perfect illustration with the astonishing mnemonic prowess of these children.

In other rooms, I see orchestras of up to two hundred and twenty children performing Beethoven and Schubert with passion, spirit and drive. In every hallway, corridor and stairwell, I see practice groups of different sizes and configurations, working with dedicated instructors helping to bring the young players out, to express themselves freely, and master any technical, intonation or ensemble problems. As Rodrigo explains to me, the pedagogical principles of the system are based on working in groups, on team effort and encouragement rather than criticism. Members of each group learn trust, are made to feel part of a musical family, in which there are no grades, examinations or competition. To be a soloist or a conductor is not considered more exalted than being a member of the orchestra.

On the second day of my visit, Rodgrigo Guerrero was called to meetings to help prepare last-minute plans surrounding a trip to London in a few days’ time in which Maestro Abreu is to be made an honourary member of the Royal Philharmonic society, joining the august company of the greatest composers and musicians of the last 150 years. On the next leg of my visit, I am accompanied by Norma Núñez who at the age of twenty-one is a graduate of El Sistema (as a violist), a university student pursuing a program in international relations, and also working part time for FESNOJIV, assisting Rodrigo. Her English is superb, and she already demonstrates the confidence, and sense of personal achievement and future possibility that El Sistema strives to instill in the young.

Norma instructs our driver in Spanish, and after a successful joust with Caracas traffic, we find oursel
ves at the Núcleo Rinconada. Rinconada serves some 1,400 children and is one of the largest núcleos in the System. We are met by the centre’s coordinator, Maria Eugenia Gallardo, a self-possessed woman in her mid-20’s with an intense gaze and a ready laugh. Like Norma, Eugenia projects a sense of calm self-assurance and competence that is all the more striking given the magnitude of her responsibilities. Like most of the teachers, she graduated from the system herself.

Every available space at the main Rinconada Núcleo building is filled with groups of children large and small. In one classroom I see a group of about eight mothers and fathers sitting on the floor with their two- and three-year old children. An instructor is tapping rhythms on a tambourine or clapping, and the parents take turns helping their toddlers to clap out the same beats. Then there are simply sing-song Spanish nursery rhymes. The atmosphere is light and fun-filled–the whole exercise feels like group play, and a bonding exercise designed as much to engage the parents as the children.

After touring the main Rinconada building, our little group is joined by one of the teachers at the núcleo, Monica Gomez. We head out to our vehicle, where the driver is waiting, and I learn that I’m in for a surprise. Norma, translating for Eugenia, explains to me that Rinconada has so many children now that it has expanded into a second building that we will be driving up the mountain to see. The second building is the main horseracing track of Caracas, the Hipódromo La Rinconada! It’s a vast building overlooking the racecourse in the shadows of lush mountains (see photo). Nowadays there are races only occasional, on weekends, leaving the building and all its meeting rooms common areas and other spaces available for use by the Rinconada children for music.

As we ascend one of four tall stairways I excuse myself for being slow because of a recovering ankle injury. Monica’s reply reminds me that violence is always a presence for young people here: she says that she walks slowly too, ever since having been shot in the foot by a would-be bank robber seven years ago at her local branch where she’d stepped in to make a deposit.

The children have taken up residence at La Rinconada racetrack and claimed it as their own. We see fantastic murals depicting the great composers as wild genie-like figures painted to help amuse and motivate the children. Mural painting is a ubiquitous artform in Caracas: you see paintings, caricatures, landscape murals, political slogans and portraits of historical figures on every roadside; what better than this to import this popular art into the El Sistema’s núcleos!

In one of the larger rooms, I hear an orchestra of almost 200 nine- and ten-year olds rehearsing a program ranging from a French Baroque processional march to an Offenbach can-can, to a traditional Venezuelan joropo brilliantly orchestrated. The children are focused intently and clearly enjoying themselves as they play the hell out of these pieces. Their conductor is more a peer than a master, and is obviously little more than five or six years the senior of most of the children playing. This is another illustration of the unique method of El Sistema, which is to continually foster a collegial atmosphere and youth empowerment. Our young conductor gets what he wants from his players with jokes, examples and encouragement and not reprimands or correction.

These are the same young musicians who, just a few years before, had been playing in a so-called Paper Orchestra: to deal with a critical instrument shortage, and foster parental involvement, beginning players are given the project of making life-sized model instruments at home with their mothers and fathers. The instruments don’t make sound but they give the youngsters experience in holding, bowing, fingering and keeping to the conductor’s beat. Now they are going at it with incredible gusto, hitting crescendos that make the ears ring in this cramped room!

I ask about the joropo–a characteristic Venezuelan folk-dance in a lively, slightly jumping meter, and Eugenia explains that El Sistema exposes the children to their own culture and fosters pride and awareness of themselves as Latin Americans. There are so many wonderful Latin American composers, and El Sistema gives the children a chance to experience this music, accorded the same dignity as the masterpieces of Europe and North America.

As Eugenia says, “these children aren’t losing their culture because they’re playing in a symphony orchestra, they are claiming its rightful place alongside the best music from around the world.”

Eugenia goes on to explain that, when El Sistema was getting started, some critics expressed fears that the symphonic music of Europe would wipe out indigenous Venezuelan musical culture. Exactly the opposite has happened. There has been an enormous flowering of folk ensembles within and alongside El Sistema, as children of their own volition experiment with the traditional music and instruments of their people. The only difference, says Norma, “is that the folk groups now play really, really well!” Having released recordings featuring Venezuelan folk ensembles of bandolas and cuatros, I can attest to the virtuosity and dedication of young graduates of El Sistema to the music of their own country.

As I take my tour, I can’t help but notice that the joy of the children is matched by that of the instructors, conductors and my guides. They laugh and joke, embrace and exchange familiarities as though they’ve known each other all their lives.

I ask Norma if she, Eugenia, Monica and some of the other instructors went through El Sistema together and how long they’ve known each other. Norma, who is new to her job at FESNOJIV, explains that she’s only known Eugenia and Monica for a couple of weeks. She tells me, however, “we are like sisters–that’s because we all have the System in common. It brings us together, and makes us all feel like part of one family. Everyone who shares this experience is united in a way that will last all our lives. We really are a family, and Maestro Abreu is like our grandfather.”

As Rodrigo Guerrero later explains to me, “we take these kids who grow up in an environment surrounded by dangerous people and enemies, and the System shows them that there is trust, sharing, cooperation and that they can get more satisfaction, safety and happiness by working together in a spirit of friendship. As they are learning music, they learn that their voice counts as much as anybody else’s. They can stop the group and ask questions, they can make themselves heard. They can think critically, because they aren’t just followers; their time to lead the group, or take responsibility and teach may come soon, too. This experience changes their attitudes, helps their minds and their reasoning grow, and gives them the experience of being citizens who contribute. As the system grows and we have more and more adults formed by this experience, our society will grow and change. It is the greatest contribution that we can make to the future of our country.”

The Centre for Social Action Through Music

One of the highlights of the trip is a visit to the amazing, brand-new Centre for Social Action Through Music. It is a state-of-the-art music education and performance centre, and like the more than 300 orchestras and hundreds of choirs in El Sistema, it is José Antonio Abreu’s brainchild. The Centre is just about to open to the public and it rises magnificently to a height of 11 stories, in a powerful and expressive style that I associate with the father of Venezuelan contemporary architecture, Carlos Raúl Villanueva. Exploring unexpected possibilities in reinforced concrete, the Centre has both a monumental solidity and an airy and graceful openness befitting the country’s tropical climate. Every floor has open terraces leading to the outside. The building subtly incorporates the work of wonderful Venezuelan artists including brilliant patterned fabrics on the seats of the concert halls (there are 4 of them), colourful patterned floor tiling, and a magnificent 6-story high hanging “Penetrable” sculpture by the great Venezuelan artist Jesús Rafael Soto, which adorns the exterior of the building above the entrance way. I’m told that this was Soto’s last creation before his death in 2005 and that he donated the gigantic work to the Centre in honour of Maestro Abreu.

The Centre is a mass of state-of-the art soundproofed performance and rehearsal studios, recording and broadcast facilities, a library, and rehearsal spaces that would make superb soundstages for film scoring. There are four performing spaces including a spectacular 1,100 seat concert hall for orchestral performances, and an open-air amphitheatre that backs onto the forested grandeur of the mountainous Avila Park. Wherever possible, innovative products and designs by Venezuelan designers and companies have been used (including the delightful doorknobs on each door, created specially to allow musicians with instruments in their hands to open them with their elbows). Native woods, grown and harvested in an environmentally sustainable way, have been used everywhere and lend a rich patina to the interiors that will only glow more richly as the building ages.

This thrilling facility brings the best of the best to children who have had to make do with barely serviceable facilities, shortages of instruments, supplies, sheet music and virtually everything else. It is like a grand gesture to Maestro Abreu’s children, telling them, “you deserve the best–anything is possible!” Typically, the Centre is in the middle of an extremely disadvantaged neighbourhood. Rodrigo says, “This shows Maestro’s training as an economist. He wants the Centre to help simulate the economy in this part of the city. But it also is designed to be near to one of our oldest churches, one of the central synagogues and the central mosque of Caracas; it stands as a symbol of unity and harmony.” After one gets to know Dr. Abreu, one senses another part of his thought process in the selection of this location: the intensely egalitarian and democratic impulse. You can almost imagine him saying, “What good is a place like this unless it is available to every child, even the poorest and most disadvantaged?”

The Centre is just about to open but the main concert hall has already been used by Deutsche Grammophon to record the latest CD featuring the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under the baton of their charismatic superstar conductor, Gustavo Dudamel.

I am treated to an orchestral rehearsal in the main hall, with its rich wood interior, the seats awash in vibrant colours. The orchestra gives a rousing account of Schuman’s Rhenish Symphony under the baton of Nabil Shehata, the Kuwaiti-born principal bass of the Berlin Philharmonic, who is just beginning a parallel career in conducting. The acoustics are warm, clear and lend ample support to the music.

The final revelation about the Centre is that it is intended as a prototype, and not a one-of-a-kind monument. Rodrigo tells me that plans are in place to build at least six such Centres distributed around the country to make them accessible to as many children and youths in El Sistema as possible.

Meeting “Maestro”

Throughout my visit, it is uncertain when, and if, I will meet with our 2008 Glenn Gould Prize Laureate, the man who created El Sistema, and has nurtured it along over 32 years, through 8 different governments from across the political spectrum. The man known with a mixture of affection and reverence simply as “Maestro” is scheduled to make a whirlwind European trip that includes his induction into the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, along with events in Barcelona and Madrid.

His exact flight itinerary to Europe is uncertain, seemingly changing by the hour. I am told that he considers it a high priority to meet with me before his departure, but he is also tied up in a series of planning meetings with regional FESNOJIV officials, and with government administrators whose cooperation is essential. The current government has provided more generous support than previous ones, and El Sistema is also now receiving funding from the Inter-American Development Bank, all of which creates a hugely complex web of responsibilities for “Maestro,” now age 69.

On my third day in Caracas, I receive word that a meeting is planned at my hotel in the early evening: “‘Maestro’ would like very much to have a coffee with you.” At the appointed hour, Dr. Abreu appears, with one assistant. He walks slowly across the lobby as I approach to greet him, a tiny figure, sometimes moving a little slowly, but with a firm stride and exuding a combination of calm and warmth. We embrace and exchange a few reminiscences about the recordings that my company produced with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in the 1990s and important figures in the development of the system, most notably our mutual friend, the great Mexican conductor Eduardo Mata, who died tragically at age 53 when the Piper Aerostar plane he was piloting crashed following engine failure.

“Maestro” and I head to the café. Venezuelan coffee is astonishingly good, and it’s easy to become addicted. “Maestro” takes a double espresso and I take a regular coffee con leche. Abreu is a tiny man, but full of energy, life and humour. There is a sense of purpose in everything he says and does. He is challenged by diabetes and ulcers, but his spirit seems indomitable. He speaks softly, but every word is distinct and his assistant is clearly taking note of any hint of an instruction. He smiles often, with a look that conveys a feeling of well-being and occasional puzzlement over all the fuss that people make over him. When you are in his presence, you sense that combination of love, serenity, and complete dedication that marks a few truly extraordinary leaders. I already know that Abreu works day and night for “his children.” He takes little for himself. In fact he does not own his own home, and lives with his sister and brother-in-law. The honours bestowed upon him make him uncomfortable because the last thing he cares about is self-aggrandizement. Rather, he accepts accolades on behalf of the dedicated teachers in El Sistema, for his staff, and for the courageous children who have shown the strength to transcend a harsh environment through their hard work and persistence.

Maestro Abreu makes it clear to me that El Sistema is not about him, not about making stars like Gustavo Dudamel, and not about singling out “winners” from the crowd and not even about creating careers in music. The program is about every child, including those with troubled and violent histories, those who are blind, intellectually challenged, those in trouble with the law, and even the deaf. The System is about helping those young persons transform their lives through the realization of their creative potential.

This focus on all the children in El Sistema makes it important, the Maestro tells me, for a large ensemble like the Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra to come to Toronto when the Glenn Gould Prize is presented, so that the 250 members can serve as a symbol of the many, rather than focusing on one man.

I ask Dr. Abreu, a trained economist, whether economic theory has anything to say about the astonishing results of El Sistema. Clearly not a market-based model in any sense, nor precisely Keynesian, the System seems to challenge today’s Neo-Liberal orthodoxy. With a smile, Abreu suggests I read the works of the distinguished American economist William J. Baumol the so-called “godfather of empirical economic arts research” and his work on the theory of “Cultural Capital,” which explores the value that cultural enterprises of all kind can spread throughout a society.

As we discuss options for the Prize Gala Ceremony and an array of related events, the possibilities become more and more exciting and the opportunity for the Glenn Gould Foundation to help Maestro Abreu in his work becomes clearer. More details will appear on this website in the weeks ahead as our plans and discussions with FESNOJIV coalesce.

At the end of our meeting, the “Maestro” presents a huge surprise: a proposal to present a major Glenn Gould Festival at the Centre for Social Action through Music in 2009. Maestro says he wants to introduce “his children” and the Venezuelan people to the unique spirit and vision that Glenn Gould represented.

We part with an embrace and a promise to meet again soon in Caracas to finalize plans. As “Maestro” departs I am struck that one tiny man, an economist and musician, has been able to achieve so much by tapping into the transforming power of music, the determination of a people not to give in to hardship and despair and the goodwill and support of people around the world. The cynicism and apathy that is such a regular feature of our lives simply melt away in the presence of this man.

One can only imagine that Glenn Gould would have been proud to have his name associated with this remarkable musical humanitarian, just as Maestro Abreu expresses humility and appreciation at being chosen the Laureate of the award named for Glenn Gould..