In May, Graz’s University of Music and Performing Arts (KUG) was host to a day of music and discussion, welcoming 200 musicians from Venezuela’s El Sistema and an illustrious panel of speakers.

The KUG, Sistema & social responsibility

Hosting the Fiesta! meeting, emphasised the KUG's continued resolve to realise a vision of social responsibility which sees it look to broaden its students' horizons and strive for social transformation within both the university and the wider Styrian community. Following SEYO18, the university's students have now been active in successive SEYOs and the university has also been highly supportive of local Sistema-inspired initiatives. Its students play an invaluable role in the region through their engagement with Superar Steiermark while the university itself hosts a music for social change programme, Meet4Music, and is working on establishing its own student orchestra initiative.

A stellar cast & a stimulating discussion

At Fiesta!, the KUG’s rector, Dr Elizabeth Freismuth, got the day started by welcoming a panel laden with luminaries of the Sistema world, such as the executive director of El Sistema Venezuela, Dr Eduardo Mendez, the founder of El Sistema Guatemala & co-founder of SEYO, Bruno Campo, and the founder of Sistema in Lombardia and vice president of Sistema Europe, Maria Majno. In the company of the managing director of the Hilti Foundation, Dr Christine Rhomberg, and a host of education and sustainability experts, a lively discussion soon commenced.

Focusing on the El Sistema approach as a global model for social integration, the experts exchanged experiences, discussed current and future challenges, looked at the model’s potential in Europe and shared best-case scenarios for its successful implementation in, for example, the Austrian state education system.

Building impact & intensity

For Dr Christine Rhomberg, raising awareness of and increasing interconnections and exchanges between community arts projects is key to maximising these projects’ impact. Dr Elizabeth Freismuth stressed the role which universities need to play in society and how Sistema was the perfect fit for helping her university to achieve this aspiration. Dr Eduardo Mendez and Franka Verhagen then talked to the audience about the considerable reach of El Sistema throughout Venezuelan society and the community role that this enables it to play. And, as Dr Bernhard Gritsch pondered the complexity of introducing the focused intensity of Sistema to the busy lives of Austrian school children, both Leila Weber and Bruno Campo told us how children in Vienna and Berlin had actually confounded their original concerns and begged for more teaching hours.

When Walter Gutmensch compared European and Latin American approaches to music, he noted a tendency to focus on and nurture musical affinity in South America and a prioritisation of musical knowledge in Europe. He said that this approach often intimidates people and puts them off getting involved, whereas he had witnessed a spontaneity and a joy of participation in Latin America that he would like to see more of in Europe. In response, Ulrike Gelbmann suggested that there maybe needed to be more focus on developing intrinsic values (enthusiasm, empathy, motivation) in European music teaching and both Dr Eduardo Mendez and Franka Vergagen emphasised the benefits of the organic, peer learning approach to teacher training pursued by El Sistema. In particular, Dr Eduardo Mendez spoke of the necessity for classroom experience to be an integral part of teacher training from the very start, saying that “We don’t wait until we have a Ph.D. as a professor to teach”.

Maintaining constant change

In an interesting conversation between Maria Majno, Dr Eduardo Mendez and Dr Ulrike Gelbmann, we also heard about the perhaps surprising importance of change and improvisation for the attainment of long-term sustainability. As Dr Ulrike Gelbmann herself put it, “Sustainability is not a state of harmony, but rather a process of change. And, this is what I really wanted to stress here, this constantly changing, constantly getting better. To put it in the words of the Austrian-American philosopher and constructivist, Heinz von Förster: ‘Always act in a way that makes the number of opportunities grow’”.

The discussion then came to a close with Dr Eduardo Mendez talking passionately about how racial and religious differences fade into the background in an orchestral environment and how Sistema and Sistema-inspired programmes are taking advantage of this and using the power of music to integrate refugees and their families. In his own words: “we have a lot of refugee programmes that are using El Sistema as a tool, because then you can put children in the same room and religious problems don’t matter inside and then, outside, the parents, who are Muslims or Jewish or whatever, they have to talk because their children are there sharing music inside the orchestra, and this is something that is happening right now in different El Sistema nucleos worldwide”.

Read the KUG’s full transcript of the discussion

Fiesta!

And, of course, the Venezuelan musicians with Franka Verhagen and Dr Eduardo Mendez hadn’t travelled half way across the world not to play and, after lunch, the morning’s discussion soon gave way to an afternoon of song, music and dance.

With 200 musicians from South America in Graz, Styria was treated to a real fiesta, with music from a classical youth orchestra, a Latino-Caribbean orchestra, a symphonic and a manos blancos choir and the folk ensemble, Alma Llanera.

Asked about the day’s events, the moderator and organiser of the Fiesta!, Bruno Campo, declared himself delighted with proceedings and concluded that:

“The El Sistema Fiesta! day in Graz, was full of joy, music and young musicians and meant a beautiful new spirit and showed a world of possibilities to both the students and the city of Graz”.

Photos of the day

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