A twelve year old boy is on the streets, hanging out in derelict tenement blocks next to a motorway. At thirteen he’s hooked on crack cocaine, carrying a gun and stealing and dealing to pay for his habit: an all too familiar scenario in every British city. Except Legner Lacosta was handed a lifeline currently unavailable to any British child because he hails from Caracas, Venezuela – the country where a social miracle has occurred which should be serving as the prototype for any country (e.g. Britain) choc full of youths pissed off by the cultural and spiritual bankruptcy they find all around them.
‘El Sistema’ is the visionary answer introduced to Venezuela thirty years ago by José Abreu – an economist and classical music enthusiast who believed that every poverty stricken child should have free access to classical music and that their lives would be transformed as a result. Persevering against seemingly impossible odds, Abreu has been proved triumphantly right with over 270,000 Venezuelan kids now clamouring to be part of his scheme.
Proof of the pudding has been provided by the sensational Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra (named after the man who inspired his country’s revolt against the colonial Spanish) whose appearances last month at the Edinburgh Festival and the Proms were, quite simply, miraculous. Such adjectives are bandied about so often in the classical music world that they have lost their true meaning but ‘miraculous’ is the only possible word to describe performances that reached the highest professional standards given by teenagers from a country which – before El Sistema – had no meaningful tradition of classical music.
One man’s dream has ensured that Venezuela is not only the first South American country to play classical music better than football but that its youth orchestra is the finest advertisement any country could ever wish for. To experience an ensemble of teenagers who have themselves been through shit play the monumental Tenth Symphony by Shostakovich – the twentieth century composer who went through more shit than any other at the hands of the Soviet government – with such raw passion and technical mastery was a deeply moving experience. By the end of the concert even hardened critics were leaping to their feet along with the rest of the audience.
Yet, while Britain’s politicians and tabloid editors vie with each other to produce knee jerk reactions and quick fix solutions to our moral malaise, the most important aspect of El Sistema is that it is literally saving children’s lives. Each and every one of them has a story to tell: “I’d either be dead or still living on the streets smoking crack like when I was eight” said a French Horn player. “I’d be like the other 17 year old girls in the barrio – hanging with the gangs and pregnant” said a violinist. “Joining the orchestra changed not only my life but my whole family’s. My father was drinking far too much and my brothers had dropped out of school. When I got hooked on my instrument my father stopped drinking and, one by one, my brothers went back to school” said a trumpeter.
Amazingly there was a smattering of politicians (if not tabloid editors) at the two concerts – not least in Edinburgh where the Scottish Culture Secretary was sitting alongside the Scottish Arts Council chief because Scotland has already shown it is ahead of the game by trying out a pilot scheme based on El Sistema at Stirling’s troubled Raploch housing estate.
Yet, encouraging as this is, it is only tinkering with the problem of our seriously disaffected youth. If only one of the powerful tabloids would back a scheme like this in Britain by putting their very large cheque books where their very loud mouths are they could bring about a transformation. At the very least following the children’s progress would make much better copy than the ‘heroin chic’ exploits of Moss, Winehouse, Docherty et al. Those same newspapers that delight in lurid headlines crying ‘Anarchy!’ have the wherewithal to make a real difference to our children’s lives. Does any one of them have the balls to take up the challenge?
