Brazil: Week 12 - Playing my Part with the Orchestra

Last week, I was honestly feeling like I was in a bit of a rut with my research project here in Campos.  I felt like I had observed so many rehearsals and classes that I wasn't learning many new things, and with the start of the Symphonic Festival, nearly everyone was too busy to sit down for an interview with me.  But luckily I broke out of this funk in a big way.

As the project provides lessons and training on standard orchestral instruments, they do not have any piano students.  In fact, in their new facility, they don't even have a real piano, although they have several electronic keyboards and they are in the process of purchasing a real piano.  Real pianos seem to be quite rare in this city, as the only places I have encountered them have been at the Centro Cultura Musical music school (the project's old home) where I went to practice one afternoon (but even their baby grand piano in their recital hall is not in very good shape at all,) and I saw an upright, but didn't get to play it or figure out what condition it was in, at the SESC center.  So when I heard that they would be playing Arturo Marquez's "Danzon No. 2" (a favorite Latin American classical hit and played often by the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra) which features an important part for piano, I offered to play it with them, which they thought was a great idea. They also asked if I could play the harp parts on piano, as they don't have any harpists (an instrument I haven't seen any of in Campos), for two other pieces, Max Bruch's "Kol Nidrei" and Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet," which I happily agreed to.

The convention center at UENF before rehearsal

I became very excited to soon get to get to play within the orchestra, and perhaps this is part of the power and experience of being in El Sistema.  I, like probably plenty of other yet younger kids, was hearing and watching these youths creating great music at a high level and I wanted to become a part of it myself (although, I know that part of it for me was also the fact that I hadn't gotten to sit down and practice for over a month.)  A month of sitting and watching these kids both made me want to join and make music with them, and also to pick up the violin or flute and start learning and practicing it myself (something I'm seriously considering while still here in Brazil.)  

I went into the first rehearsal in which I was playing having only been able to practice my part once with an actual instrument, so I was a little under-prepared compared to the students, but luckily I've had a lot of experience in situations like this, so I caught up quickly.  At one point, I came to the realization that I was the only non-Brazilian in an orchestra where everyone speaks Portuguese being led by a Venezuelan conductor who speaks Spanish!  I really was in a musical environment that I've never encountered before, yet was understanding and creating great music despite these cultural differences between us.  After this rehearsal, I felt fantastic, feeling that now I was, quite literally, playing my part in the orchestra.  Once again, I was experiencing how powerful music can be and how playing in an ensemble can unify people and tap into something that is deeper than all our combined differences, something that El Sistema takes great advantage of.

Rehearsal with the combined orchestras

But this rehearsal was just with the top orchestra, the Mariuccia Iacovino Symphony, on just the Bruch and Tchaikovsky, which are generally slow and lush romantic works.  The next day, I got to rehearse the Marquez "Danzon" with them for the first time, but with the Mariuccia Iacovino orchestra combined with the 2nd orchestra, the David Machado Symphony.  We packed about 150 people like sardines into the hot and stuffy rehearsal room (I had a set of timpani right behind my head!) and then we played.  What an energy rush!  Playing Latin repertoire in an orchestra with Latinos in Latin America is as fun and as thrilling an experience as I've ever had playing classical music!

The next day was the dress rehearsal and concert at the convention center of the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminese (The State University of Northern Rio de Janeiro State) which is the local, and well respected, university in the city.  The building was designed by Oscar Niemeyer, the famous Brazilian architect who designed the capital city of Brasilia, and is shaped like a giant whistle.

I was able to get a quick interview in with the Venezuelan conductor, Regulo Stabilito, but not the other two Venezuelans as I was told they weren't feeling well, so I didn't want to bother them.  Regulo's great grandfather was a man named Regulo Rico, who was the teacher of Vicente Emilio Sojo, who was a conductor that founded the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra, the first orchestra in Venezuela, in 1930.  Sojo was also the teacher of Jose Antonio Abreu.  Regulo's training was almost completely within El Sistema, and now he travels around the entire country of Venezuela and abroad to El Sistema projects working with children's, youth, and professional orchestras. 

There I am on the left at the keyboard
(Photo by Anaceli Nuffer)

The concert went on to be really fantastic.  It opened with the brass and percussion from the top orchestra, joined by the brass teachers, playing Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" (click here to hear some other Brazilians performing it.)  Then the Infanto-Juvenile orchestra, the third most advanced orchestra, played a couple numbers, including an arrangement of "The Great Gate of Kiev" from Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition."  Next up was the top orchestra, playing Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture," a piece which they learned in about two weeks, the Bruch with the Venezuelan cellist as soloist, Beethoven's "Romance No. 2" with the Venezuelan violinist as soloist and finally the Tchaikovsky.  The grand finale was with top two orchestras combined playing Bizet's Overture to "Carmen", Sibelius's "Finlandia" and the Marquez "Danzon No. 2" to finish off the night.  It was a delight to see and hear what progress these kids have made and to make music with them.  At the conclusion, all of the guest teachers were recognized and given a plaque, and to my surprise they included me as "Professor of Piano" from the United States, even though I didn't do any piano teaching, but I was honored nonetheless!  It was quite a memorable night!

Receiving my plaque from Luis Mauricio Carneiro
(Photo by Anaceli Nuffer)

Brazil: Week 11 - Interview with Jony William and Symphonic Festival begins

Jony William (left) and myself with
our Symphonic Festival shirts on

I finally got to interview Jony William, the founder and director of Orquestrando a Vida, this week.  He grew up in Campos and studied piano here as a child before going off to Sao Paulo to study conducting.  Looking for work, he was invited by a friend to become the director of a small social project in a Sao Paulo favela.  Despite many difficulties there, he started a choir for the kids and the entire experience changed his life and his view of music.  He later returned to Campos and started a music school, the Centro Cultura Musical (Center of Musical Culture) which is still going strong after 23 years.  A few years later, Fiorella Solares contacted him and the rest of the story I've already written about.  At this moment, they serve about 700 students and hope to grow by 200 per semester and create a new orchestra.  They also have 52 teachers and monitors as well as 6 orchestral and 4 choral conductors.  In addition to their main headquarters, they have 3 other nucleos around the city, but only one is currently functioning.  These are all in favelas and dangerous neighborhoods, and the ones that aren't running are because of a lack of resources, not being able to buy instruments and other necessary supplies.  I will be making some visits to these nucleos soon.  They also used to have a large program with choirs through 38 schools where the project trained a leader from each school by bringing them to the headquarters twice a week.  Unfortunately, governmental support and funding was cut at some point, although Jony is optimistic that this program will return next semester.  Last year, they also worked with a group of 100 children with attention deficits and learning problems, and the improvement in those students means they will receive another group of 70 more this year.  They are also discussing plans to open nucleos in Vitoria and Vila Velha, which are the largest cities in the state of Espirto Santo, which borders the Campos to the north.

Jony also mentioned to me how the project teaches students about their rights and duties as a citizen.  Last May, the project was without any sponsors and they were on the verge of having to close their doors, so they took to the streets with 3 or 4 thousand people hoping to gain some support from the city government.  They mobilized the families and students and friends, bombarding the city hall with letters and writing editorials in the newspaper.  At the same time, the city was looking to hire and create it's first municipal orchestra and chorus, the first professional orchestra ever for the city, but have it comprised of musicians brought in from outside the city instead of looking towards the musicians already here, which infuriated the people here.  Eventually, the city finally asked Jony if Orquestrando a Vida would administer and run the municipal orchestra and chorus, but Jony would only accept it if the orchestra and chorus would be solely comprised of members of the project, as they have been the dominant, if not the only, force for classical music in the city and nobody would even want a professional orchestra in the city if they hadn't created these youth orchestras.  They now employ almost 90 musicians and administrators and this is how they are currently funded and the municipal orchestra is essentially a smaller version of the top youth orchestra of the project, the Mariuccia Iacovino orchestra (and the kids in the orchestra do get paid.)  Jony believes that if you truly want and believe in something, you need to fight and struggle for it. This is the true meaning of "Tocar e Lutar" ("To Play and to Fight,") the motto of El Sistema.

Venezuelan teacher leading the orchestra

When I asked him what kind of progress El Sistema has made in recent years in Brazil and around the world, Jony told me that 5 years ago he had to write a thesis for a degree and he chose the topic of El Sistema.  He submitted it 4 times and it was rejected all 4 times by the faculty, as they couldn't believe that a Latin American country was truly doing something this important and successfully in classical music.  But he returned and re-submitted this year and it was accepted by everyone on the committee, so there has been a big change in how El Sistema and social music programs are viewed, especially by professional musicians in Brazil.  There have been attempts at creating a network of El Sistema programs in Brazil to work together and help the movement grow, but Jony told me how meetings to discuss this typically end in fierce arguments with nothing getting accomplished.  Jony was in Brasilia a month ago when Abreu and Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff announced an agreement to create 300 El Sistema nucleos in Brasilia, and he tells me that this is a very important step for the El Sistema movement in the country.  By the end of next year, they are planning on having 500,000 kids (!) in these programs in Brasilia, and if it is successful it will be a huge positive example that programs in other states, like here in Rio de Janeiro, can leverage to gain more support and funding.

Mariuccia Iacovino orchestra in rehearsal

I had my first opportunity this week to sit in on a rehearsal of the "Orquestra Escola "(School Orchestra) which is the orchestra comprised of recent beginners, all of a young age (probably around 10 years old.)  The orchestra is conducted by one of the advanced violin students from the top orchestra, and she is helped by several other advanced students that sit in with the young students, play along, and help them out.  In this orchestra of probably 50-60 young kids, there were at least 7 of the older students there to help.  And interestingly enough, it seemed the entire orchestra and rehearsal was directed and managed by these older students, as I never saw an adult enter during the entire rehearsal.

I was also able to sit down this week with Mariana Andrade, who is both the mother of one of the students and a social worker at the project, beginning her work here a little over a month ago.  She told me that more than 50% of the students here come from families from the lowest economic level.  Campos is a very big city in terms of area, covering over 1,500 square miles (about the size of Rhode Island).  While the vast majority of people are clustered in densely populated center, Mariana told me that there are more than 30 districts and Orquestrando a Vida serves kids from 80 different neighborhoods.  Some are more than an hour's drive away and the mothers come with their children, but instead of returning all the way home, they stay until the kids are done, so one of the things she does is an arts and crafts group with the moms to take advantage of their time waiting.  She also sees children and mediates conflicts and helps families to understand the project and what they do here.  They also have a psychologist who usually visits once a week with whom the children can make appointments with.

Venezuelan conductor leading the orchestra

This weekend marked the beginning of the first Symphonic Festival held by the project.  This is basically all for the benefit of the students here, as Campos is not a hotbed of classical music and professional classical musicians, so they have brought in prominent teachers and professionals from Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and a few other places around Brazil, plus 3 from Venezuela, to work with the kids.  It has been really interesting to watch the Venezuelans, who don't know more than a few words of Portuguese, work with the students.  The conductor, for example, just speaks Spanish to the kids, and it seems like everyone still understands it.  I've gotten to speak with the Venezuelans briefly, and hope to interview them, but speaking Spanish now is so hard for me as I've been immersed in Portuguese for the past several months!  The festival continues until Wednesday with several concerts the next few evenings.

Brazil: Week 10 - Advanced Students as Teachers, and Special Education

An advanced oboe student giving a lesson outside

I was able to sit down last week with Luis Mauricio Carneiro, who is co-founder of Orquestrando a Vida, and conductor of the top orchestra of the program, the Orquestra Sinfonica Mariuccia Iacovino.  His first contact with El Sistema happened in 1996, when he and a few other Brazilians traveled to Venezuela to be part of the "Orquesta Sinfonica IberoAmericana," joining other young musicians from Portuguese and Spanish-speaking countries in a youth orchestra.  While there, he was able to see some of the nucleos of El Sistema up close and became inspired by what they were doing.  Shortly after this trip, Fiorella Solares reached an agreement with Jose Abreu to bring a delegation of teachers from Venezuela down to Brazil to meet together with dedicated teachers from all over Brazil for two months of intense sessions about the philosophy and principles of El Sistema so that these Brazilian teachers could then return to their own cities and start nucleos for an 'El Sistema Brasil'.  For various reasons, it was difficult to hold this meeting in Rio, so Fiorella asked Jony William, who ran a music school here in Campos, and Mauricio if they would be able to host this meeting, which they gladly accepted.  Unfortunately, after the meeting finished, all the Brazilian teachers went back to their own cities and none of them followed through and created an El Sistema nucleo except for Jony and Mauricio here in Campos.

Violin class outside

Their program started from humble beginnings.  It began as a program within the "Centro Cultural Musical" music school, which Jony had founded in about 1991, and gave scholarships to children that couldn't afford lessons at the school.  At that time, there were no string instruments (outside of guitar) in the city of Campos at all and no string teachers, so they had to bring the kids to Rio to study these instruments initially.  They started off with classes only 3 days a week and created a string orchestra.  Despite many difficulties, they persevered and grew significantly, now holding classes 5 days a week after school with 5 orchestras.  Eventually, the program became so big  that the music school could not financially support them any longer, so they created the non-profit organization "Orquestrando a Vida" (Orchestrating Life) in about 2003 so that they could being seeking support from fiscal sponsors and companies.  They grew more and more to the point where they truly needed their own building and facilities. (I just watched a DVD they lent me of a TV special done by the TV network "Globo" about the program from 2011, and they held rehearsals in truly any free space they had within the music school, even in the bathrooms!) But thankfully, in December 2012 they moved into their new, much roomier, current facility.

I was also able to take a look at archival pictures from the past three years of the project.  In just these past couple of years, the top orchestra sure has given a lot of performances.  They have toured internationally in New York City and Bolivia, nationally in Belo Horizonte and Vitoria, several cities within Rio de Janeiro state, and in squares and several churches here in Campos.  I also just learned that they've just confirmed that in June they will be taking the top orchestra on tour through Portugal and the Azores.

Fabiano teaching his violin class

During last week's concert for the families of the students, which I blogged about, I met and befriended a student named Fabiano.  Beyond having the best grasp of the English language of anyone I have yet met here in Campos (which isn't saying very much!), Fabiano plays violin in the top orchestra.  He entered the program here when he was only 3 years old and began singing in the choir.  Now, 11 years later, 9 or 10 of them playing the violin, he has advanced to be a member of the top orchestra here, which he entered when he was 12 years old.  Beyond this, for the past two years Fabiano has also been a teacher at the program, with his own class of about 8 younger violin students.  Once a student makes it into the top orchestra, they take on teaching responsibilities as well, and from what I have seen, these advanced students really take pride in being teachers and mentors to the younger students, always helping them out during orchestra rehearsals, helping them tune their instrument, etc.  During the day I sat in on his class, I hadn't even seen an adult at the project yet, it seemed it was all being run by the older students!  Fabiano told me that he wants to be a music teacher when he grows up, as he really enjoys it, and I could tell by observing his class that he really has a knack for it as well.  Beyond going to a private school for about 4 hours Monday through Friday, he tells me that he generally spends 5 or 6 hours here at the program Monday through Saturday (more than 30 hours a week!)

4 years ago, Fabiano and his family were in a serious car accident (on the "Highway of Death" that I talked about in a previous blog post) in which the car he was in was hit by a truck.  His aunt was killed and he suffered a gash on his left hand, which caused the doctor to tell him that he would never be able to play the violin again.  After a week of being absolutely devastated, he went to his teacher who told him that he couldn't not play the violin and predicted that he absolutely would be able to play again.  After a while of rehabilitation and playing through pain, he was eventually able to fully recover.  So for Fabiano, music has done amazing things in his life.

Class in session even during a holiday!

May 1st was a holiday here in Brazil, and I was told that, for the most part, classes and rehearsals were cancelled for the day, but you really wouldn't have guessed that based on the amount of kids who were at the program this day.  Everywhere I looked, kids were practicing or doing something musical. It was less so than on a normal day, but still much more than I was expecting.

The day before, I'd met another older student named Antonio.  He heard that I was a composer, so he wanted to show me some pieces that he had written, as he'd never had a composition lesson.  I offered to give him a little informal composition lesson, although it was difficult because I am still learning the words for a lot of the musical jargon and terminology in Portuguese.  I suggested that he gather a few violin friends together so that we could read through a piece for several violins that he is working on and I'd be willing to conduct it.

Students in the top orchestra are all teachers as well

On Thursday, I was at the project just wandering around looking for something interesting, when I was approached by a man named Reginaldo, who I realized was the man who gave the presentation on people with disabilities and led the sign-language choir during last Friday's concert (which I mentioned in my blog post from last week.)  He told me that he has worked with Jony William, the director here, for a long time and together they are planning to create a Special Education program within the project here and create an orchestra comprised of children with disabilities.  He asked me if I knew of any programs like this in the US that has done something similar, but I haven't heard of any, only that El Sistema in Venezuela does have an extensive special education program.  He then invited me to go with him to a nearby SESC center (which I think is kind of like a club or community center that has sports and cultural activities) to see a talk given by a Brazilian Reggae band who was in town to play a concert.  The reason he brought me to see it was because 4 of the 5 members of the band are blind.  The talk was somewhat interesting, although much of it I didn't understand.  I was given a free ticket to the concert afterwards, but didn't stay long as it really wasn't my kind of scene.

Coming up at the end of this week and into the next is a little festival being held at the project.  They are bringing in 3 teachers from El Sistema in Venezuela and several teachers from Sao Paulo to work with the kids, plus several concerts which should be great!