(Update-2) STORY AND LINKS: On the road with the L.A. Phil in Venezuela

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

NOTE: I think this will be the final update, adding the final (I presume) stories from Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The final stories are reviews of the Mahler 8 concert in Caracas; the NYT times review is of the theater telecast. I wasn't able to attend Saturday's telecast because I was singing in a memorial service but plan on going to the "encore" performance on Feb. 29.
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Although the name “El Sistema,” the landmark music program that nurtured Gustavo Dudamel, now music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has become increasingly well known around the world, most of the stories have focued on Dudamel and the programs that organizations such as the L.A. Phil are launching in the U.S. to emulate the Venezuelan system.

With the Phil in Caracas this week for a repeat of its “Mahler Project” cycle from last month in Los Angeles, both Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times and Daniel J. Wakin of the New York Times are in Venezuela providing reports not only on the concerts but mostly on the local aspects of “El Sistema” and its impact on the hundreds of thousands of students who are part of the program.

Following are the stories published so far (separated by media outlet):

(Los Angeles Times)
• Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Phil start things in Caracas
• Caracas diary: A sweet Mahler's Fourth and Dudamel-mania
• Meeting the Youngest Musicians of El Sistema
• Even Dudamel is wowed by huge Mahler rehearsal
• L.A. Phil musicians get to know the Venezuelans
• Dudamel, Abreu and and a multitude of young musicians
• Gustavo Dudamel’s monster Mahler 8 in Caracas

(New York Times)
• Mahler Is O.K., but Gustavo, He’s Amazing
• In Caracas, doubling up the orchestra
• Fighting Poverty, Armed with Violins
• A musical exchange in Venezuela: El Sistema performs for the L.A. Philharmonic
• Mahler Megasymphony: Marshaling the troops
• James T. Oestrerich’s review of the movie telecast is HERE.

(Associated Press)
• Dudamel and L.A. Philharmonic make waves in Caracas (Sacramento Bee via AP)

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(c) Copyright 2012, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Comments

[nr]

Dudamel and Abreu are excellent but enough with the El Sistema already. It's now been five years of media carpetbombing. It does some very good things but there are still slums in Venezuela and Caracas is unsafe. The same will be true wherever it is tried. Music education has its limits.

[Bob Thomas]

Thanks for your comment. Of course, nobody forced you to click through to the stories, which did a good job (IMHO) of spotlighting the system in Venezuela. Music education cannot solve all problems of society but "El Sistema" does an amazing amount of good for many of those who participate. Moreover, some of us are Quixotic enough to believe that if every government spent far less on bombs and bullets and far more on instruments and instruction, the world would ultimately become a better place to live.