Ted Talk draft

Many people like you and I have had the opportunity of receiving a good education and live in financial stability, and the luck of having a home to live in. However there are people in the world who do not have access to these luxuries and live in poverty with no chance of escaping that reality.

What if I told you that there was an organization that has the purpose of giving the children that live in these situations a way out, and gives them a chance in the real world through music. This organization is called El Sistema and was created by Jose Antonio Abreu, a Venezuelan musician. His main ambition was to introduce the instruction and collective practice of music through symphonies and orchestras as instruments of social organization and human development.

The most important of the projects that El Sistema has created has been the Nucleos, which are free to join centers where children as early as 3 years old attend and are taught how to play an instrument, and later on, in an orchestra. Many of the instructors at the Nucleos are former students of the program. These Nucleos allow the children to take their instruments home with them so they can practice. El Sistema's approach to music education emphasizes intensive ensemble participation from the earliest stages, group learning, peer teaching and a commitment to keeping the joy and fun of musical learning and music making ever-present. The learning sequence begins when the children are still at a preschool level, picking up their first instruments at the age of 5. Later on, the children learn through performing in front of audiences as much as possible, reducing the pressure of formal performances in the future. In Venezuela there are over 200 Nucleos around the country, with about 500,000 current students enrolled, with plans to expand to 1,000,000 by next year. 

El Sistema has allowed many musicians to become successful artists in the professional world, the most famous being the composer Gustavo Dudamel, who is now the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Gustavo joined one of the Nucleos when he was a young boy and had acquired a newfound interest in music. My mother was actually one of the people who taught Dudamel when he was at the Nucleo. He had an unremarkable amount of talent, which helped him achieve his goal of becoming a composer. He later became the lead composer for the Venezuelan national orchestra. Success stories like Dudamel's are very common, with many of the teenagers able to acquire scholarships for some of the best arts schools in the world.

Jose Antonio Abreu presented a TED Talk himself about El Sistema in 2009, and was awarded a prize by the TED Organization which allowed him to bring El Sistema in the United States in cohesion with multiple music conservatories, creating programs in schools, community centers, and other venues. Just like in Venezuela, lower class children living in the U.S. can use music to create a pathway to new opportunities to become successful. 

El Sistema creates a growing community that supports the foundations of loving children first to loving music second, creating a place where children feel safe and challenged. El Sistema graduates leave with a confidence to take on the enormous challenges in their lives and how to engage these with professionalism.