A Society With Different Abilities
Trip Log - Discovering the System of Youth Orchestras
By Pablo Varela

In the past few years, we have often heard, through various means of communication, the expression "people with special needs" that, justly, replaces the superficial and wrong one of "handicapped persons". Also, there are concepts of normal people and special people, appropriate, considering the fact that they help to better understand this situation.

To reach goals and targets there is a need to commit ourselves and to use our intellect to the best of intentions, since a great part of 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 the White Hands and the children from the centre of Barquisimeto - then we realize that we are faced with something truly special.

Day 0
Milano, Linate Airport - Saturday October 7th 2006, 08:00 h

I close my eyes and listen to the Manfred Overture whilst my airplane is taking off with destination Caracas. I feel great emotion because I have desired this moment so much: my debut with the Simòn Bolìvar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, the orchestra so dear to Eduardo Mata, as we say in Mexico. What will I feel when I hear for myself the sound of this excellent orchestra that I know so well for its marvellous interpretations of Revueltas, Chàvez, Estévez and many other great composers that our Eduardo spread with pride and mastery throughout the whole world?

Day 1
Caracas - Monday October 9th 2006, 16:00 h

The phone in my hotel room rings: it is Mirley Sànchez, who has come to pick me up so as to accompany me to the rehearsal. I look out of the window, enjoy the sight of the big mountain Avila, and then go down to the lobby straight away. In the car I talk to Mirley, I ask her about the orchestra and the National System of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela. Mirley is a musician and 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 into contact with this socio-musical phenomenon like someone who, after having lived a whole life, discovers the existence of close relatives 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 a 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 invades us. The music emerges, but this music does not come from the instruments, it comes from the soul of each single musician who communicates through the 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 does not justify its existence if it does not communicate. My chronicle may seem dreamy, something that normal people might categorize as idealistic, and I say: yes, it is, because this phenomenon, that exists only in Venezuela, is due to the 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: To Play and To Fight!

Day 2
Caracas - Tuesday October 10th 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 searcher in discovery of the system of the FESNOJIV (the State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children Orchestras of Venezuela). A phone call from the Orchestra informs me that, due to the presidential elections and to an act of God, 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 at the invitation of the system and get a close look at what is happening here. I do not 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 the concert hall, the modern musician must get involved on a social level to favour strengthening and development of the world in which he lives. This is also the credo of the FESNOJIV.

They have brought me to visit various centres spread around the country where children and youngsters receive a musical education, creating a great army of sound! Here the system provides violins, bassoons, horns and other instruments to give life to the musical army called ORCHESTRA. 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 11th 2006, 17:00 h

We arrive at the rural centre of Guarenas. My attention is caught by the walls of a sky-blue colour. I am accompanied by Romina and I indicate this particularity to her. We are warmly received by the people responsible for the centre who appreciate our presence very much and we immediately enter into this world that I have never before had the good luck of knowing. At the first stage of the journey we enter a little room with drawings on the walls, in which there are two girls playing with the children from the nursery. Only, on the walls of this room 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 come alive through their play. These two teachers 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 that he wants to go running or play with a ball - but instead, on a shelf, there are cases with little violins! So when the moment to change games comes, it is time for the game of playing an instrument!
Going out of the room, I notice the name they have given it: Salon José Antonio Abreu.

We then pass on to other rooms in which the children are taught the physionomy of the instruments, theory and solfeggio. The particularity of this system consists in the fact that the 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.
Finally we climb the stairs that lead to a huge hall where we listen to the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Here are the children and the youngsters from the centre who, from 6 to 8 o'clock in the afternoon, after their lessons, get together to rehearse symphonic repertoire. I notice again the sky-blue 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 listening to all these children play is like being in heaven".

Day 4
Barquisimeto - Thursday October 12th 2006, 06:00 h

We are travelling towards the State Lara. I am accompanied by Mayuri Carrasquel, the assistant of the SJVSB (Simòn Bolìvar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela), 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 at 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 people, generous and professional; they are the founder and conductor of the Choir of the White Hands. The initial motive of our visit to Baraquisimeto was to share with the special children of this centre my experience in the field of music therapy through my programme "Towards a new form of approach to music" which, together with my activity of conductor, has allowed me to come into 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 could not 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 proved to be a true lesson in humanity!

Jhonny explains to us the method they use to teach music to the children and youngsters with hearing, visual, cognitive and motory impediments, learning difficulties and autism. He shows us with great satisfaction the Braille printer that they have brought from Miami to be able to teach every day and according to the needs of each case 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 sings and plays various works from Venezuelan folklore and an Ave Maria. Naybeth, with great sensitivity and authority, conducts the choir of the deaf-mute children who, with white gloves, and thanks to gestures, guttural sounds and choreographies, give voice to the texts of the melodies.
They observe Naybeth with a lot of attention, follow her indications with perfect synchrony 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 13th 2006, 14:00 h

In the afternoon I begin my music therapy with a group of children suffering from autism and Down syndrome who belong to the class of Lourdes Zàrraga and Zonnia Cedeño. It has been wonderful to see the positive and enthusiastic response of the children. Even the Bolìvar quartet mixed in so well 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 led by Prof. Antonio Gonzàles, in which deaf youngsters played more precisely than a clock and we ended the afternoon with the songs of Osito Blin Blin, a boy with cognitive disorder and with a special piano and trumpet duo formed by Danny and Gustavo, both with visual difficulties. In the evening we consider the possibility of composing a musical work especially for the centre, including the Choir of the White Hands, rhythmic bands, piano and trumpet as soloists, something different than only for the symphonic orchestra with normal youngsters. A great enterprise, 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 on 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 all-Schumann concert with the Bolìvar Orchestra should have begun at this time. The programme whould have featured the Manfred Overture, the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra as well as 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 14th 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 little less than a month ago in Rome I was listening to Beethoven's Triple Concerto with Abbado and Mahler’s 5th Symphony with Dudamel, both in front of the SJVSB in the principal hall 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 theTeatro 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 15th 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 to 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 a beautiful concert to me and I have heard Natalia Gutman play flawless Brahms.

In this modern society in which the influence of massmedia threatens our capacity of commitment, of thinking and dreaming, in which passivity is confused with realism and activity with idealism, it is necessary to open our eyes and ears and revalue our convictions.

The airplane takes off, I listen to Manfred again and already nothing is the same any more.

Creation date : 23/02/2007 @ 00:41
Last update : 29/03/2010 @ 12:34
Category : The Wanderer Chronicles
Page read 3229 times

 Print preview      Print the page