For some reason, I can't publish the text of my friend Pablo Varela without a few sentences of my own. I hope he will forgive me.
I remember the day when he told me that he would conduct the Simòn Bolìvar Orchestra. The news sent shivers down my spine for I knew what orchestra that was and I knew the story behind it. We celebrated the news in Bologna (and what news it was!), before a concert of Claudio Abbado and Orchestra Mozart. Then we met again in Rome in September 2006, but this was far more special. We were both there for a concert of the Orchestra Simòn Bolìvar, conducted by Abbado. Unique emotion. After the first part (Beethoven's Triple Concerto), we left our seats to go to a special person - José Antonio Abreu, the brain of the "miracle from Venezuela", as the system is called around the world. That was when I met this simple man who was so moved by the little flower I gave to him and a word of thanks that I said in his language that he held me in a strong embrace quite for a while. I'll
always treasure these moments. After the concert, that ended with Mahler 5th conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, we went walking the streets of Rome till late through the night.
A couple of weeks later, Pablo Varela, conductor, went to Caracas. This is the story of what he found there. He gave me his permission to do the English translation and publish it here. I am very grateful to him for sharing this beauty with me and for allowing me to share it with all of you who are reading this now.
(click on the photos to enlarge and here are the Spanish original and the Italian version)
In the last years, we have often heard, through the means of communication, the expression "persons with different abilities" that, justly, replaces the superficial and wrong one of "handicapped persons". Also, there are concepts of regular people and special people, appropriate, considering the fact that they are helping to understand this situation better.
To reach goals and targets, there is a need to commit ourselves and use our intellect in the best of ways, since a great part of the success has its roots in these two factors. But when people manage to go beyond the ordinary, developing and using their abilites to the maximum - as in the case of the Choir of White Hands and the children from the centre of Barquisimeto - then we realize that we are before something truly special.
Day 0
Milano, Linate Airport - Saturday October 7 2006, 08:00 h
I close my eyes and I listen to the Manfred Ouverture while my airplane is taking off with the destination Caracas. I feel great emotion because I have desired this moment so much: my debut with the Symphonic Orchestra Simòn Bolìvar of Venezuela, the orchestra so dear to Eduardo Mata, as we say in Mexico. What will I feel when I hear in first person the sound of this excellent orchestra that I know so well by its marvellous interpretations of Revueltas, Chàvez, Estévez and many other great composers that our Eduardo spread with pride and mastery in the whole world?
Day 1
Caracas - Monday October 9 2006, 16:00 h
The phone in my hotel room is ringing: it is Mirley Sànchez, who came to pick me up to accompany me to the rehearsal room. I lean on the window, enjoying the sight of the large mountain Avila, and I go down to the lobby right away. In the car I talk to Mirley, I ask her about the orchestra and about the National System of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela. Mirley is a musician and is a product of this system, knows it very well and knows how "special" this project born 33 years ago is. Curiously, I too was born 33 years ago, my profession is music, and now I feel that I am about to get in contact with this socio-musical phenomenon like someone who, after having lived a life, discovers the existence of a close relative and feels the need to meet them. So we reach Montalban where the rehearsal will take place.
Ziemlich langsam (crotchet = 52)
Loud, resonant, and immediately a diminuendo to the pianissimo over an octaved A of the entire orchestra opens the way to this mysterious line entrusted to the second violins, violas and bassoons. We are starting to get to know each other through the first movement of Schumann's Fourth Symphony. The Bolìvar follows my gestures attentively, I listen to it, I observe it, and the sound invade
s us. The music emerges, but this music is not coming from the musical instruments, but is a fruit of the souls of single musicians who communicate by the means of sound. Since early childhood they have been learning this language, even before learning to speak they already knew how important it is to communicate and say something through a musical instrument; in fact, they know that an instrument is only such, and that it doesn't justify its existence if it does not communicate. My chronicle might seem dreamy, something that regular people might categorize as idealistic, and I say, yes, it is, becase this phenomenon that exists only in Venezuela is owned to realization of a dream and of an ideal. The dreamer: José Antonio Abreu - "Doctor Abreu" as today he is called with veneration not only in Venezuela, but all over the world - the ideal: Play and Fight!
Day 2
Caracas - Tuesday October 10 2006, 12:00 h
Something has happened that has transformed my trip and changed me in a few seconds from the guest conductor to the explorer in discovery of the system of the FESNOJIV (the State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela). They call me from the Orchestra to inform me that, due to the presidential elections and higher force, the Cultural Complex Teresa Carreño will not be available for its musical purpose on the day scheduled for the concert. The concert will be rescheduled and in the meantime there are two possibilities: return or remain this week on the invitation of the system and get a close look on what is happening here. I don't think twice and I reply to Victor Rojas (the orchestra manager) and to Romina Noviello (coordinator) that I will stay, since I firmly believe that the activity of the contemporary musician must go beyond concert halls, the modern musician must get involved on social level to favour strengthening and development of the world in which s/he lives. This is also the credo of the FESNOJIV.
They have brought me to visit various centres disseminated around the country where children and youngsters receive musical education, creating great sound infantry! Here the system provides violins, bassoons, horns and other instruments to give life to musical infantries called ORCHESTRAS. Here they are given an opportunity to get to know a better life, lives exhausted by poverty and marginalization are saved by the means of a single unifying and multiplying agent: music!
Day 3
Guarenas - Wednesday October 11 2006, 17:00 h
We arrive at the rural centre of Guarenas. My attention is caught by the walls of skyblue colour. I am accompanied
by Romina and I indicate this particolarity to her. We are received warmly by the people responsible for the centre appreciating our presence very much, and we immediately enter this world that I have never before had the fortune of knowing. As the first stage of the route we enter a little salon with drawings on the walls, in which there are two girls playing with the children from the nursery. Only, on the walls of this salon the drawings represent neither fairy tales nor cartoon characters: there are notes and staves that the children identify as their favourite characters and make them alive through their play. These two educators are themselves musicians in a youth orchestra and they study music at the centre. At one point Pablito, one of the children, starts to lose patience because he wants to play another game - and one would imagine th
at he wants to go running or play with a ball - and instead, on a shelf, there are cases with little violins! So the moment of changing the game comes, now is the time of the game of playing! Going out of the salon, I notice the name they have given to it: Salon José Antonio Abreu.
We then pass to other salons in which the children are taught the physionomy of the instruments, theory and solfeggio. The parti
cularity of this system is consisted in the fact that their teachers are older youngsters who teach younger ones in a way that they develop a surprising capacity, not only for the performance on their instruments but also for teaching and pedagogy.
Finally we climb the stairs that lead to a huge hall where we listen to the first movement of the Fourth Symphony of Tchaikovsky. It is them, the children and the youngsters from the centre who, from 6 to 8 o'clock in the afternoon, after their lectures, get together to rehearse symphonic repertoire. I notice again the skyblue colour of the wall and I understand that it is not a coincidence and I think that Placido Domingo was right to say that "entering the Theatre Teresa Carreño and listen to all these children play is like being in heaven".
Day 4
Barquisimeto - Thursday October 12 2006, 06:00 h
We are travelling towards the State Lara. I am accompanied by Mayuri Carrasquel, the assistant of the SJVSB (the Symphony Orchestra of the Venezuelan Youth Simòn Bolìvar), Peyber Medina, Armando Nùñez, Ana Marìa Oviol, Roy Garcìa (string quartet of the Bolìvar Orchestra) and Miguel A'lvarez, our driver.
At noon we arrive to Barquisimeto, the capital of the state and the
home town of the prodigious Gustavo Dudamel. At the conservatory we are welcomed by Prof. Jhonny Gòmez and his wife, Prof. Naybeth Garcìa, both wonderful persons, generous and professional; they are the founders and conductors of the Choir of the White Hands. The initial motive of our visit to Baraquisimeto was to share with the special children of the centre my experiences in the field of music therapy through my programme "Towards the new forms of musical approach" which, joined with my activity of conductor, has allowed me to come in contact with children, senior citizens, special people and marginalized youngsters, who are in need of human contact. My group of the Bolìvar musicians and I couldn't imagine how profound this encounter would be and what trace it would leave in us. Apart from sharing many musical experiences, this encounter in Barquisimeto has proven to be a true lesson of humanity!
Jhonny explains us the method they use to teach music to the children and youngsters with hearing, visual, cognitive, learning difficulties, motoric impediments, autism. He shows us with great satisfaction the Braille printer that they have brought from Miami to be able to teach daily and according to the needs of every case, to the children who are partially or completely blind. After that we go to the entrance hall of the conservatory where a group of children and youngsters with musical instruments, voices and white gloves have sung and played various works from Venezuelan folklore and an Ave Maria. Naybeth, with great sensibili
ty and authority, conducts the choir of the deaf-mute children who, with white gloves, among gestures, guttural sounds and coreographies, give voice to the texts of the melodies.
They observe Naybeth with a lot of attention, follow her indications with perfect synchronicity and manage each with their gestures to communicate the real essence of human existence: we are all equal. Today a pair of gloves of the Choir of the White Hands can be found in a little wooden box at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn.
Day 5
Barquisimeto - Friday October 13 2006, 14:00 h
In the afternoon I begin the music therapy for a group of children with autism and Down syndro
me, entrusted to the professors Lourdes Zàrraga and Zonnia Cedeño. It has been wonderful to see the positive and enthusiastic response of the children. Even the Bolìvar quartet has blended so much that in these two days of activity we have formed a true family together with all our friends from the centre. We have witnessed a rehearsal of the rhythmic band captained by Prof. Antonio Gonzàles, in which youngsters with deafness played more precisely than a clock and we have ended the afternoon with the songs of Osito Blin Blin
, a boy with cognitive disorder, and with a special duo of piano and trumpet formed of Danny and Gustavo, both with visual difficulties. In the evening we value the possibility of composing a musical work specifically for the centre, including the Choir of the White Hands, rhythmic bands, piano and trumpet as soloists, other than the symphonic orchestra with regular youngsters. A great operation, which undoubtedly represents a challenge for an active conductor and at the same time composer who ceased to write years ago thinking he had nothing to say, who however from this day has discovered that he can give voice to these children and that these children can return voice to him.
It is 8 pm and my Caracas concert in an all-Schumann programme with the Bolìvar orchestra would be about to begin. In programme Ouverture Manfred, Concerto for Cello and Orchestra and the Fourth Symphony. In the meantime in Barquisimeto I am living to the maximum these days of fire, friendship and so much music.
Day 6
Caracas - Saturday October 14 2006, 20:00 h
All this is happening at the FESNOJIV! I comment enthusiastically to Enrique de Quesada, my agent, and to Rosa Raydan, our dear friend from ABN (Bolivarian News Agency) while walking towards the theatre. A bit less than a month ago in Rome I was listening to Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Abbado and Mahler 5th with Dudamel, both in front of the SJVSB in the principal of the Parco della Musica. This evening in Caracas at the Teresa Carreño I will listen to the SJVSB with Natalia Gutman as the soloist. A month ago I was embracing Dr. Abreu complimenting him for his achievements and today I embrace him warmly again to thank him for having invited me to Caracas. Less than a week ago Dr. Abreu was still in Milan for the debut of Gustavo Dudamel in a production of Don Giovanni at Teatro alla Scala. Today Dr. Abreu applauds in his country the Bolìvar Orchestra, Gutman and Rugeles, after a stupenduous Brahms.
Day 7
Caracas airport - Sunday October 15 2006, 17.00 h
The week of work has reached its end and, while the airplane is taking off, I think: "If in our society it is necessary to commit ourselves in order to reach our targets and our goals, then a great part of the success has its roots in commitment and intelligence. The concept of special people can be applied equally to someone like Mahler or a child from the Choir of the White Hands of Barquisimeto or to an entire society that does not cease to commit itself and dream." In 7 days I have rehearsed with the Simòn Bolìvar Orchestra, met members of the System, travelled to Guarenas and Barquisimeto, the Choir of the White Hands has dedicated me a beautiful concert and I have heard Natalia Gutman play flawless Brahms.
In this modern society in which quotidianity and the influence of massmedia threat our capacity of commitment, of thinking and dreaming, in which the passivity is confused with realism and activity with idealism, it is necessary to open eyes and ears and revalue our convictions.
The airplane takes off, I listen to Manfred again, and already nothing is the same any more.
-----------
Links to check:
Claudio Abbado talks about the children of Venezuela (Italian)
Claudio Abbado and Gustavo Dudamel conduct the Bolìvar Orchestra in Sevilla (Spanish)
Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Children Orchestra from Montalban
The trailer to the documentary TO PLAY AND TO FIGHT (Tocar y Luchar)
The official website of the documentary TO PLAY AND TO FIGHT (Tocar y Luchar)
The book and the documentary THE OTHER VOICE OF MUSIC (L'altra voce della musica)
An article featuring Edicson Ruiz, the 22-year-old first bass of the Berliner Philharmoniker
I remember the day when he told me that he would conduct the Simòn Bolìvar Orchestra. The news sent shivers down my spine for I knew what orchestra that was and I knew the story behind it. We celebrated the news in Bologna (and what news it was!), before a concert of Claudio Abbado and Orchestra Mozart. Then we met again in Rome in September 2006, but this was far more special. We were both there for a concert of the Orchestra Simòn Bolìvar, conducted by Abbado. Unique emotion. After the first part (Beethoven's Triple Concerto), we left our seats to go to a special person - José Antonio Abreu, the brain of the "miracle from Venezuela", as the system is called around the world. That was when I met this simple man who was so moved by the little flower I gave to him and a word of thanks that I said in his language that he held me in a strong embrace quite for a while. I'll
always treasure these moments. After the concert, that ended with Mahler 5th conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, we went walking the streets of Rome till late through the night.A couple of weeks later, Pablo Varela, conductor, went to Caracas. This is the story of what he found there. He gave me his permission to do the English translation and publish it here. I am very grateful to him for sharing this beauty with me and for allowing me to share it with all of you who are reading this now.
(click on the photos to enlarge and here are the Spanish original and the Italian version)
A Society With Different Abilities
Trip Log - Discovering the System of Youth Orchestras
By Pablo Varela
Trip Log - Discovering the System of Youth Orchestras
By Pablo Varela
In the last years, we have often heard, through the means of communication, the expression "persons with different abilities" that, justly, replaces the superficial and wrong one of "handicapped persons". Also, there are concepts of regular people and special people, appropriate, considering the fact that they are helping to understand this situation better.
To reach goals and targets, there is a need to commit ourselves and use our intellect in the best of ways, since a great part of the success has its roots in these two factors. But when people manage to go beyond the ordinary, developing and using their abilites to the maximum - as in the case of the Choir of White Hands and the children from the centre of Barquisimeto - then we realize that we are before something truly special.
Day 0
Milano, Linate Airport - Saturday October 7 2006, 08:00 h
I close my eyes and I listen to the Manfred Ouverture while my airplane is taking off with the destination Caracas. I feel great emotion because I have desired this moment so much: my debut with the Symphonic Orchestra Simòn Bolìvar of Venezuela, the orchestra so dear to Eduardo Mata, as we say in Mexico. What will I feel when I hear in first person the sound of this excellent orchestra that I know so well by its marvellous interpretations of Revueltas, Chàvez, Estévez and many other great composers that our Eduardo spread with pride and mastery in the whole world?
Day 1
Caracas - Monday October 9 2006, 16:00 h
The phone in my hotel room is ringing: it is Mirley Sànchez, who came to pick me up to accompany me to the rehearsal room. I lean on the window, enjoying the sight of the large mountain Avila, and I go down to the lobby right away. In the car I talk to Mirley, I ask her about the orchestra and about the National System of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela. Mirley is a musician and is a product of this system, knows it very well and knows how "special" this project born 33 years ago is. Curiously, I too was born 33 years ago, my profession is music, and now I feel that I am about to get in contact with this socio-musical phenomenon like someone who, after having lived a life, discovers the existence of a close relative and feels the need to meet them. So we reach Montalban where the rehearsal will take place.
Ziemlich langsam (crotchet = 52)
Loud, resonant, and immediately a diminuendo to the pianissimo over an octaved A of the entire orchestra opens the way to this mysterious line entrusted to the second violins, violas and bassoons. We are starting to get to know each other through the first movement of Schumann's Fourth Symphony. The Bolìvar follows my gestures attentively, I listen to it, I observe it, and the sound invade
s us. The music emerges, but this music is not coming from the musical instruments, but is a fruit of the souls of single musicians who communicate by the means of sound. Since early childhood they have been learning this language, even before learning to speak they already knew how important it is to communicate and say something through a musical instrument; in fact, they know that an instrument is only such, and that it doesn't justify its existence if it does not communicate. My chronicle might seem dreamy, something that regular people might categorize as idealistic, and I say, yes, it is, becase this phenomenon that exists only in Venezuela is owned to realization of a dream and of an ideal. The dreamer: José Antonio Abreu - "Doctor Abreu" as today he is called with veneration not only in Venezuela, but all over the world - the ideal: Play and Fight!Day 2
Caracas - Tuesday October 10 2006, 12:00 h
Something has happened that has transformed my trip and changed me in a few seconds from the guest conductor to the explorer in discovery of the system of the FESNOJIV (the State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela). They call me from the Orchestra to inform me that, due to the presidential elections and higher force, the Cultural Complex Teresa Carreño will not be available for its musical purpose on the day scheduled for the concert. The concert will be rescheduled and in the meantime there are two possibilities: return or remain this week on the invitation of the system and get a close look on what is happening here. I don't think twice and I reply to Victor Rojas (the orchestra manager) and to Romina Noviello (coordinator) that I will stay, since I firmly believe that the activity of the contemporary musician must go beyond concert halls, the modern musician must get involved on social level to favour strengthening and development of the world in which s/he lives. This is also the credo of the FESNOJIV.
They have brought me to visit various centres disseminated around the country where children and youngsters receive musical education, creating great sound infantry! Here the system provides violins, bassoons, horns and other instruments to give life to musical infantries called ORCHESTRAS. Here they are given an opportunity to get to know a better life, lives exhausted by poverty and marginalization are saved by the means of a single unifying and multiplying agent: music!
Day 3
Guarenas - Wednesday October 11 2006, 17:00 h
We arrive at the rural centre of Guarenas. My attention is caught by the walls of skyblue colour. I am accompanied
by Romina and I indicate this particolarity to her. We are received warmly by the people responsible for the centre appreciating our presence very much, and we immediately enter this world that I have never before had the fortune of knowing. As the first stage of the route we enter a little salon with drawings on the walls, in which there are two girls playing with the children from the nursery. Only, on the walls of this salon the drawings represent neither fairy tales nor cartoon characters: there are notes and staves that the children identify as their favourite characters and make them alive through their play. These two educators are themselves musicians in a youth orchestra and they study music at the centre. At one point Pablito, one of the children, starts to lose patience because he wants to play another game - and one would imagine th
at he wants to go running or play with a ball - and instead, on a shelf, there are cases with little violins! So the moment of changing the game comes, now is the time of the game of playing! Going out of the salon, I notice the name they have given to it: Salon José Antonio Abreu.We then pass to other salons in which the children are taught the physionomy of the instruments, theory and solfeggio. The parti
cularity of this system is consisted in the fact that their teachers are older youngsters who teach younger ones in a way that they develop a surprising capacity, not only for the performance on their instruments but also for teaching and pedagogy.Finally we climb the stairs that lead to a huge hall where we listen to the first movement of the Fourth Symphony of Tchaikovsky. It is them, the children and the youngsters from the centre who, from 6 to 8 o'clock in the afternoon, after their lectures, get together to rehearse symphonic repertoire. I notice again the skyblue colour of the wall and I understand that it is not a coincidence and I think that Placido Domingo was right to say that "entering the Theatre Teresa Carreño and listen to all these children play is like being in heaven".
Day 4
Barquisimeto - Thursday October 12 2006, 06:00 h
We are travelling towards the State Lara. I am accompanied by Mayuri Carrasquel, the assistant of the SJVSB (the Symphony Orchestra of the Venezuelan Youth Simòn Bolìvar), Peyber Medina, Armando Nùñez, Ana Marìa Oviol, Roy Garcìa (string quartet of the Bolìvar Orchestra) and Miguel A'lvarez, our driver.
At noon we arrive to Barquisimeto, the capital of the state and the
home town of the prodigious Gustavo Dudamel. At the conservatory we are welcomed by Prof. Jhonny Gòmez and his wife, Prof. Naybeth Garcìa, both wonderful persons, generous and professional; they are the founders and conductors of the Choir of the White Hands. The initial motive of our visit to Baraquisimeto was to share with the special children of the centre my experiences in the field of music therapy through my programme "Towards the new forms of musical approach" which, joined with my activity of conductor, has allowed me to come in contact with children, senior citizens, special people and marginalized youngsters, who are in need of human contact. My group of the Bolìvar musicians and I couldn't imagine how profound this encounter would be and what trace it would leave in us. Apart from sharing many musical experiences, this encounter in Barquisimeto has proven to be a true lesson of humanity!
Jhonny explains us the method they use to teach music to the children and youngsters with hearing, visual, cognitive, learning difficulties, motoric impediments, autism. He shows us with great satisfaction the Braille printer that they have brought from Miami to be able to teach daily and according to the needs of every case, to the children who are partially or completely blind. After that we go to the entrance hall of the conservatory where a group of children and youngsters with musical instruments, voices and white gloves have sung and played various works from Venezuelan folklore and an Ave Maria. Naybeth, with great sensibili
ty and authority, conducts the choir of the deaf-mute children who, with white gloves, among gestures, guttural sounds and coreographies, give voice to the texts of the melodies.They observe Naybeth with a lot of attention, follow her indications with perfect synchronicity and manage each with their gestures to communicate the real essence of human existence: we are all equal. Today a pair of gloves of the Choir of the White Hands can be found in a little wooden box at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn.
Day 5
Barquisimeto - Friday October 13 2006, 14:00 h
In the afternoon I begin the music therapy for a group of children with autism and Down syndro
me, entrusted to the professors Lourdes Zàrraga and Zonnia Cedeño. It has been wonderful to see the positive and enthusiastic response of the children. Even the Bolìvar quartet has blended so much that in these two days of activity we have formed a true family together with all our friends from the centre. We have witnessed a rehearsal of the rhythmic band captained by Prof. Antonio Gonzàles, in which youngsters with deafness played more precisely than a clock and we have ended the afternoon with the songs of Osito Blin Blin
, a boy with cognitive disorder, and with a special duo of piano and trumpet formed of Danny and Gustavo, both with visual difficulties. In the evening we value the possibility of composing a musical work specifically for the centre, including the Choir of the White Hands, rhythmic bands, piano and trumpet as soloists, other than the symphonic orchestra with regular youngsters. A great operation, which undoubtedly represents a challenge for an active conductor and at the same time composer who ceased to write years ago thinking he had nothing to say, who however from this day has discovered that he can give voice to these children and that these children can return voice to him.It is 8 pm and my Caracas concert in an all-Schumann programme with the Bolìvar orchestra would be about to begin. In programme Ouverture Manfred, Concerto for Cello and Orchestra and the Fourth Symphony. In the meantime in Barquisimeto I am living to the maximum these days of fire, friendship and so much music.
Day 6
Caracas - Saturday October 14 2006, 20:00 h
All this is happening at the FESNOJIV! I comment enthusiastically to Enrique de Quesada, my agent, and to Rosa Raydan, our dear friend from ABN (Bolivarian News Agency) while walking towards the theatre. A bit less than a month ago in Rome I was listening to Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Abbado and Mahler 5th with Dudamel, both in front of the SJVSB in the principal of the Parco della Musica. This evening in Caracas at the Teresa Carreño I will listen to the SJVSB with Natalia Gutman as the soloist. A month ago I was embracing Dr. Abreu complimenting him for his achievements and today I embrace him warmly again to thank him for having invited me to Caracas. Less than a week ago Dr. Abreu was still in Milan for the debut of Gustavo Dudamel in a production of Don Giovanni at Teatro alla Scala. Today Dr. Abreu applauds in his country the Bolìvar Orchestra, Gutman and Rugeles, after a stupenduous Brahms.
Day 7
Caracas airport - Sunday October 15 2006, 17.00 h
The week of work has reached its end and, while the airplane is taking off, I think: "If in our society it is necessary to commit ourselves in order to reach our targets and our goals, then a great part of the success has its roots in commitment and intelligence. The concept of special people can be applied equally to someone like Mahler or a child from the Choir of the White Hands of Barquisimeto or to an entire society that does not cease to commit itself and dream." In 7 days I have rehearsed with the Simòn Bolìvar Orchestra, met members of the System, travelled to Guarenas and Barquisimeto, the Choir of the White Hands has dedicated me a beautiful concert and I have heard Natalia Gutman play flawless Brahms.
In this modern society in which quotidianity and the influence of massmedia threat our capacity of commitment, of thinking and dreaming, in which the passivity is confused with realism and activity with idealism, it is necessary to open eyes and ears and revalue our convictions.
The airplane takes off, I listen to Manfred again, and already nothing is the same any more.
-----------
Links to check:
Claudio Abbado talks about the children of Venezuela (Italian)
Claudio Abbado and Gustavo Dudamel conduct the Bolìvar Orchestra in Sevilla (Spanish)
Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Children Orchestra from Montalban
The trailer to the documentary TO PLAY AND TO FIGHT (Tocar y Luchar)
The official website of the documentary TO PLAY AND TO FIGHT (Tocar y Luchar)
The book and the documentary THE OTHER VOICE OF MUSIC (L'altra voce della musica)
An article featuring Edicson Ruiz, the 22-year-old first bass of the Berliner Philharmoniker
2 commenti:
As someone who has read it as a friend of someone who interpreted it, a must admitt, that it brings people up to think about themselves what to do in their lives. This is a the was I just want to thank for giving the possibility of being a part of ist - by reading.
Amazing... simply amazing... These children are already learning the power of music!
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