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July 20, 2008

El Sistema: Changing Lives Through Music

Bob Simon On Venezuela's Groundbreaking Musical Education Program

  • Play CBS Video Video El Sistema

    Through a system of early training and local orchestras, Venezuela has developed an orchestra that is world famous. Bob Simon reports. (This segment was originally broadcast on April 13, 2008.)

  • Video Gustavo The Great

    Flamboyant, passionate and young, Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel is one of the biggest stars in classical music. Bob Simon reports.

  •  (CBS)

  • Fast Facts Venezuela

    Learn about the people, economy and history.

(CBS)  Nearly 300,000 kids like Paola are in "the system." There are 176 orchestras for children, 216 for young people, and 400 more ensembles, orchestras and choirs. The sound of children playing classical music is everywhere. If it seems they're playing as if their lives depend on it, Dr. Abreu says they do.

"Eight hundred thousand children have passed through the system in 32 years," he told Simon.

"The majority of them have not, will not become musicians?" Simon asked.

"Music produces an irreversible transformation in a child. This doesn't mean he'll end up as a professional musician. He may become a doctor, or study law, or teach literature. What music gives him remains indelibly part of who he is forever," Abreu said.

Take Lennar Acosta, who 60 Minutes first met eight years ago when he was serving time in a juvenile detention center in Caracas. He was 17, had a violent criminal background, and the scars to prove it. When the detention center started an orchestra, Lennar tried the clarinet.

Ed Bradley asked him about it.

"Tell me what it was like the first time you picked it up to play it?" Bradley asked.

"It's completely different than when you hold a gun," Lennar replied.

Asked if he thought his life was different because of the clarinet and the orchestra, Lennar told Bradley, "Yeah, a lot. The music taught me how to treat people without violence."

That's not all he learned. 60 Minutes caught up with him one morning recently on his way to work, in Germany. The system sent him here to work as an apprentice, learning how to build and maintain organs.

Back in Venezuela, Lennar will be responsible for maintaining the organ in the system's new headquarters.

The day Simon was there, the National Youth Orchestra - made up of the system's best musicians - was rehearsing. Their conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, is the orchestra's first international superstar and a product of Dr. Abreu’s system, which in the beginning most people thought would never work.

"For a lot of people he was a crazy man. Kids, Venezuelan, poor, playing classical music. Oh my God!" Dudamel told Simon.

Continued



Produced by Harry A. Radliffe II
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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by dadeed October 12, 2009 10:18 AM EDT
today, 0ct 12,2009, I tried to watch your 2 videos: El Sistema and Gustavo the Great but could not get them to play. Have they both been worn out? Can they be refreshed? I want to share them with other friends. Thank you. DD
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by scrollworks July 7, 2009 8:51 AM EDT
Everyone told me about this story on El Sistema when it aired last summer, but I didn't see it until yesterday. I'm inspired all over again to bring a program like this to Birmingham, AL. In Jan 2007, I began donating my retirement and then all my savings to start Scrollworks--$53,000 so far. We teach free music lessons to anyone who walks in the door at two locations. Our goal, though, is to train young musicians so that they can participate in our youth orchestras. We have made great progress. We're teaching over 300 students a week this summer. In the fall we will be revamping our program at an inner city elementary school to more closely follow El Sistema's model--a 'music intensive' after school at least two days a week. Bringing El Sistema to the US is hard work but it is so worth it!
Jeane Goforth
CEO, Metropolitan Youth Orchestras of Central Alabama
700 8th Ave W, Birmingham, AL 35204
205-908-8843
http://www.myorch.org/
http://metroyo.blogspot.com/
http://jeane-metroyo.blogspot.com/
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by daina520 June 29, 2009 4:40 PM EDT
For those of you passionate to bring El Sistema to the world, please join the Causes page (http://apps.facebook.com/causes/290357), give & help spread awareness for this incredible initiative.
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by leatherider July 22, 2008 8:20 PM EDT
My generation was one of the lucky ones -- public schools provided us with music appreciation classes, drama, chorus, band, orchestra . . . and we are the better for it. The Arts have provided uncountable hours of both pleasure and meditation over the years. Music is truly the universal language.

Unfortuantely, as mentioned in an earlier posting, arts programs are the first to suffer from budget cuts as less and less federal funds are alloted to our public schools. And yet our polititians still wonder why school dropouts and violence are ever on the increase while our position among the world''s educated nations continues to plummet.
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by nrwisdom July 22, 2008 1:41 AM EDT
I would also like to know where to send a donation! Please give us an address! I have a clarinet and a flute I would love to send them!
Reply to this comment
by daina520 June 29, 2009 5:03 PM EDT
For those of you passionate to bring El Sistema to the world, please join the Causes page (www.causes.com/music4kids), give & help spread awareness for this incredible initiative. You can donate also here: http://elsistemausa.org/support-a-fellow.
by smehary July 21, 2008 8:02 PM EDT
I would like to know how/where to donate money and /or instruments.
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by flreason July 21, 2008 2:57 PM EDT
Anyone involved in music and the arts knows their power. Unfortunately, most Americans miss that experience. Arts programs are the first things to be cut when school budgets get tight. If you want to convince your school administrators why music is worth funding, check out this web site...Reasons to Study Music:
http://www.winstonmusic.net/instructionreasons.htm
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by r_c_greene July 21, 2008 2:42 PM EDT
Neurological research is now showing that the potential for processing sound as music (and music as a sophisticated language of human experience) is held in every brain, but it must be developed early for best results. Also there is longstanding evidence that very early music training improves the entire vestibular system making general learning easier and more productive. There is also long-standing evidence that a child%u2019s basic notions about the world and how to live in it are set by the age of six. So Dr. Abreu%u2019s notion of social change through classical music is not simply sentiment and wishful thinking; it is reality. Elster said that popular music for these children is associated with bad things %u2013 drunkenness, violence %u2013 but that classical music and creative learning create a new and better world for them. If this is true, then the immense %u201Cheadlock%u201D that pop music and pop culture have on both the young and the old in the US presents the most daunting challenge for us here. Would children be able to give up all the junk of pop culture for a relatively regimented twelve hour a day immersion in what many think of as the culture of the elite oppressor? Would parents be willing to give up control of their children%u2019s notions of the world? We can only hope.
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by r_c_greene July 21, 2008 2:41 PM EDT
What a great story! And, yes, my wife and I are ready, with everyone else who posted comments, to give money, instruments and even time to support this program. I have a feeling that many who commented have spent many, many, many hours, days, and years trying to change and improve the lives of young people in the USA through classical music. I dare say there are many more children learning to play instruments in this country that there are in Venezuela, and there are quite a few programs for inner-city children here (the most famous being Roberta Guaspari''s program in Harlem). So what is the difference in Venezuela? Perhaps the extreme poverty and lack of hope in which the Venezuelan poor are living create a backdrop that intensifies the good that serious music-making can do for the human spirit. Perhaps it is the dramatic triumph over great odds through the initial vision and the persistence of one person. I was struck by the comment by Dr. Abreu who founded the program, that music was indeed a vehicle for social change. Raphael Elster, one of the branch directors, said that the children spend almost 12 hours a day, six days a week, in %u201Cthe system.%u201D This means that the children spend most of their early lives listening to, and learning how to participate in, sophisticated musical experiences. Would Americans accept such a system?
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by tonkacoco July 21, 2008 11:56 AM EDT
I have a perfectly good trombone, in a case, which I would willingly donate to one of these organizations along with a briefcase of music??
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by scrollworks July 21, 2008 9:24 AM EDT
Partly inspired by El Sistema, we started teaching free music lessons to inner city children in February. At two of our locations, we teach free music lessons on many instruments to anyone who walks in the door. It''s magic. You can watch the barriers between race, zip code, economic status fall before your eyes as people communicate their hearts through music. This is real. It''s happening in Birmingham now. It''s going to change the world. Our website: scrollworks.org Our blog: http://metroyo.blogspot.com/
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by smehary July 21, 2008 5:23 AM EDT
How/where can I donate either money or instruments?
Reply to this comment
by daina520 June 29, 2009 5:02 PM EDT
For those of you passionate to bring El Sistema to the world, please join the Causes page (www.causes.com/music4kids), give & help spread awareness for this incredible initiative. You can donate also here: http://elsistemausa.org/support-a-fellow.
by smehary July 21, 2008 5:22 AM EDT
How/where can I donate either money or instruments?
Reply to this comment
by smehary July 21, 2008 3:53 AM EDT
How/where can I donate either money or instruments?
Reply to this comment
by smehary July 21, 2008 3:22 AM EDT
How/where can I donate either money or instruments?
Reply to this comment
by smehary July 21, 2008 2:52 AM EDT
How/where can I donate either money or instruments?
Reply to this comment
by smehary July 21, 2008 2:51 AM EDT
How/where can I donate either money or instruments?
Reply to this comment
by smehary July 21, 2008 2:50 AM EDT
How/where can I donate either money or instruments?
Reply to this comment
by smehary July 21, 2008 2:48 AM EDT
How/where can I donate money or instruments?
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by amyflevinson July 21, 2008 2:21 AM EDT
This was a beautiful story! I am extremely touched by the amazing music program offered to children in Venezuela! The number of people who have been affected by this fantastic program is phenomenal! Bravo to the founder and to all of the teachers & students who work so hard to create and sustain such a fantastic program. As a violin teacher I fully appreciate the dedication of these people, and of the students in the program. Thank you CBS for sharing this with the world!
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