Waving at El Sistema

Is El Sistema, Venezuela's government-funded orchestral programme for children at the bottom of the socio-economic heap, the answer to society's woes?  Judging by the euphoric write-ups it's getting over here you might think so.  Amidst a plethora of press coverage (most recently in the Times courtesy of Candace Allen, one of Simon Rattle's former wives) comes a BBC4 programme about an appearance by the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra at Raploch, a grim outlier of Stirling and a place where something like El Sistema has been tried.

I saw only the part of this programme where the Orchestra played the Eroica on an outdoor stage under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.  The Guardian's reviewer was faintly sniffy about Dudamel's reading of the piece, but I think he is a top class conductor, both technically and musically.  Lacking perhaps a degree of refinement, the Orchestra nevertheless reminded me a little of the old Berlin Phil under Von Karajan, with its muscular string sound and augmented quadruple woodwind for the tuttis.  Mercifully Dudamel seems to lack Karajan's narcissism and self-absorbtion, although, as every conductor knows, sincerity is a great thing if you can fake it.

For every classical musician El Sistema is a tantalising prospect, promising as it does a rejuvenation of the music we love and which, as I've written on here a number of times, appears to be in decline.  But even if the government had the money to fund it nationwide (and it doesn't), would it work?  I suppose it depends partly on what you mean by work.  In this context, two answers appear possible - one, engage kids with poor prospects and two, give them a new and enriched sense of purpose.  The second of these would I think flow automatically from an encounter with the discipline of instrumental playing in a classical ensemble; but I'm not sure about the first.

Essentially El Sistema is a cultural scheme operating within a cultural context.  It offers children of a failing culture the opportunity to better themselves by immersion in the structures of another culture from half way across the world.  But there are many differences between the Venezuelan and British cultural contexts.  Here are some.  

Our poor people are not as poor as theirs.  Ours tend to have roofs over their heads, enough to eat and the right to free health care and education.  They also tend to have TVs, Playstations, mobile phones and computers.  For the children of the favelas, classical music is a new world, and the opportunity to be part of something with other people a novelty.  For our children classical music is part of the old one, entirely lacking the allure and sparkle of technological innovation they prefer in their leisure activities, and their own culture is one of individualism and self-gratification rather than the team effort.

For many children in Britain, fed a diet of music videos where the stars are airbrushed and autotuned to perfection, the hard labour and incremental gains involved in getting to grips with an instrument are inimical.  We already have El Sistema type ensembles in Britain - they are called youth orchestras; and they are in decline.  Could they be rebranded and repackaged to attract scallies from the Council estates as well as the Tarquins and Tamsins of the bien pensant?  I'd like to think so, and I admire the people who are trying, but I don't know.

Looking out from the brightly lit stage to the blustery grey light of a Scottish summer evening, I did not detect in the BBC4 programme much sign of a Damascene conversion of the youth of Raploch.  The few hundred cagoule-framed faces watching in the field were on the whole adult, some rapt with attention, others looking frankly bemused.  Where were the kids, I wondered?

In the margins of the frame, it turned out, there as the director panned across - running around, hitting each other and waving at the camera.