Changing Lives
Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema, and the Transformative Power of Music
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4.2 • 6 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Reminds us of how arts education can change lives.” —Gary Stager, Huffington Post
In this “vivid story” (Economist), Tricia Tunstall “chronicles the origins and growth of Venezuela’s acclaimed El Sistema national music education program” (Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times) and illustrates its overarching goal: to rescue children from the depredations of poverty through music. What began in Venezuela has extended to Los Angeles, New York City, and Baltimore, illustrating that El Sistema is not just a program, it’s a movement. Combining firsthand interviews with compelling stories, Changing Lives reveals that arts education can indeed effect positive social change in the United States and around the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Every day in Venezuela, nearly 400,000 children mostly from poor families spend hours learning music and playing in the country's hundreds of youth orchestras. Gustavo Dudamel, the 28-year-old conductor, is perhaps the most famous product of these music programs, and journalist Tunstall, in a compelling, readable book that is part history and part social activism, uses Dudamel's youthful exuberance and enthusiasm for music and these programs as an example of the way that music education can be a tool for social transformation. More than 40 years ago, Tunstall explains, Venezuelan musician and economist Jos Antonio Abreu, himself once a poor young man from the countryside, founded El Sistema, a nationwide music education program funded primarily by the government. Abreu's vision for the program is simple but revolutionary: music can save lives and be a potent vehicle in the fight against the perils of childhood poverty, such as gang membership, drugs, and violence. Abreu believes that if you put a violin in the hands of a needy child, that child will not pick up a gun; a child who holds an instrument feels entrusted with something of value and feels competent, worthwhile, and empowered to teach others. El Sistema has been so effective in Venezuela that programs like it are starting to develop in the U. S. and other parts of the world, and Tunstall urges state and local governments to consider establishing such programs in their communities.
Customer Reviews
Changing Lives
Tricia wrote this amazing story of how a very extensive music program called el sistema was formed in Venezuela. This music program lifted children out of abject poverty into a creative musical world filled with love. The accomplishments of all these young students and their dedicated teachers is very inspiring .
Tricia has carefully researched this life changing story chronically how el sistema was formed in the seventies. The program has produced amazing artists such as Gustavo Dudamel.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in how music can bring out the best in young people and can be very effective changing their lives especially if they are headed down the wrong path. As a musician myself. I found this book very inspiring and hope we will seek to bring el sistema to our poverty stricken areas which often provide little hope for young people. This program provided poor children opportunities that they would never have had without it. There is much to learn from this thoughtful inspiring book.
Sue Farmer
Changing Lives
This book is disappointment. I really hoped to get an understanding about the sistema and why it works, not just a description of its physical plant. if that was in there it was swallowed up by the relentlessly breathless puffery. I admit I could not finish it or I would hate the sistema. During the 53d, or was it the 78th, gushing biography of nine year old who had changed the world by absorbing the whole of Mozart I went into a diabetic coma. Read at your own risk and keep that insulin handy.