Art, schmart

A recent memory: I was in a city that shall remain unnamed, conducting the local orchestra. Post-concert, a couple of musicians and I go out for a drink, where we strike up a conversation with a local. When I explain what I’m doing in town, he expresses surprise: “I didn’t know there was an orchestra here in _______!” Never mind that we had just performed a few blocks away. Then he leans over to the musicians at the table and asks what their day jobs are – we explain that playing in the orchestra is a full-time deal. “Wow, who knew, I mean, it’s not like you’re providing a necessary service, or anything like that.” (He was a telemarketer – it took a lot for me not to snap back with a snarky rejoinder – I really try not to start bar fights!)

I was reminded of that evening while looking over an article from a couple of months back about ”El Sistema”, the Venezuelan youth project founded in 1975 by Jose Antonio Abreu as a social program to improve the lives of underprivileged kids. Essentially a network of youth orchestras, it has, since it’s inception, trained over 400,000 Venezuelan children, 90% from the lowest economic stratum, and in most cases turned their lives around.

This quote from Abreu: “As a Venezuelan musician, I proposed to make my art an instrument of authentic social development, an instrument to build citizens, a powerful vehicle to achieve an integral education for children, compensating in this way the traditional deficiencies of the continent's education system. " And he has succeeded on all accounts – Venezuela now has a network of nearly 220 youth orchestras which continue to build a sense of community and tremendous civic pride. In fact, now the entire world is looking at El Sistema as the gold-standard of arts education, and graduates are going on to successful careers in Berlin and Los Angeles.

What is extraordinary about the Venezuelan system is the notion that providing musical training, with the discipline and opportunity for self-expression that comes with it, can reshape and fulfill the lives of children living in some of the worst slums in the world, kids who would otherwise be caught in an endless circle of crime, drugs and despair. And this is why the comment from the telemarketer in the bar really rankled; music IS necessary and can be transformative in a very tangible way. Art is not fluff – it’s the stuff that makes humans human, that makes life a deeply joyous enterprise.