A report by Eric Booth, Publisher of The World Ensemble

Side by side—times two thousand. Led by the city and region of Gothenburg, Sweden, the Gothenburg Symphony and El Sistema Sweden, Side by Side by El Sistema (SxS) gathered 2,000 students for a five-day summer camp in the days leading up to the summer solstice. They created seven orchestras, six choruses and culminating performances of a gigantic kind rarely seen outside Latin America’s Sistemas.

The enormous size and the side by side theme, embodied on many levels, make this annual event unique in the Sistema world.

The biggest Sistema outside Latin America

El Sistema Sweden has become the largest Sistema programme outside of Latin America, with 9,000 participating students at its 35 sites in 30 cities. If you count teachers, leaders and involved family members, there are 40,000 people active in the Swedish Sistema community. They have active partnerships across Sweden, with 35 community music and art schools and 18 professional/semi-professional orchestras—including the National Orchestra of Sweden in Gothenburg, which helped start the original El Sistema Sweden programme when Gustavo Dudamel was its music director.


The size of the Swedish Sistema and the demographics of its students (mostly from immigrant or recent arrival communities) give the side by side theme its power. The camp mixes students and teachers from Sistema programmes with students and teachers from the more traditional Swedish municipal music schools and other private music schools. The camp celebrates young people who love music, wherever they come from, wherever they are learning to love music. SxS is cleverly organized to have students from these different backgrounds mixed in the intensive rehearsals - that are especially fun and fast-paced - and throughout every orchestra and choir. The programme also mixes students from different skill levels, to build ambition for the less experienced by having them play with those who are more experienced. The largest culminating concert was held in an arena used for sports and large rock music events — Elton John will play there on his farewell tour. Two thousand kids filled the floor of the arena and seats were packed with family and community members. There was also a culminating concert of the choruses.

An incredible feat of organisation

Have you managed a multi-day event with your orchestra? If you have, you know how complicated the logistics can be. Just imagine seven orchestras and then add six choirs, intense rehearsal schedules for each, food and recreation. Unbelievably, the camp ran smoothly, managed by a small heroic team, led by a faculty of 60 (another 15 if you also count the musicians of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra doing sectionals with advanced and pre-advanced orchestras) and helped by 147 volunteers—78 volunteers came from SEB bank, which is a main sponsor of SxS. The logistical accomplishment alone was astonishing. They even managed to move one orchestra of 400 off the stage and another orchestra of 300 into its place within four minutes, between pieces.


Side by side in name and in practice

Another level of the side by side theme was manifested by the top student orchestra playing with the Gothenburg Symphony, a full concert of music that included Dvořák, Stenhammar and Kabalevsky. The mentoring was evident and the quality of the sound was clearly inspiring to the students. I was especially struck by a moment in rehearsal when one young Sistema student born in Africa leaned over to his stand mate, a member of the Gothenburg Symphony, and they exchanged a relaxed laugh as long-time colleagues would.

Another moment also resonated with the side by side theme. I watched a flute section that mixed intermediate and advanced-beginner players: a group of six municipal school intermediates came in late from another rehearsal, chatting and giggling like a team. The teacher asked them to sit side by side with the less experienced students, most of whom came from Sistema programes. The older girls looked disappointed to be broken up, but complied dutifully. On a break, the older girls kept chatting with the beginners before ambling back to their upper-orchestra group. And, when the break was over, the more-advanced students immediately returned to their new stand mates and were chatting and helping side by side, making a difference socially as well as musically.

The Dream Orchestra was in the mix, too. This is El Sistema Sweden’s most ambitious project, an orchestra of young refugees who arrived in Sweden without their parents. They are latecomers to learning their instruments and many are dealing with the stress of trauma and legal immigration issues; the orchestra is becoming their family. They too played side by side in harmony.


There was certainly a Venezuelan feel to the event in terms of its size and outrageous ambition. It’s no surprise that the artistic director of El Sistema Sweden is Ron Davis Alvarez, who grew up in El Sistema Venezuela, was the director of a núcleo there by the age of 18, founded a programme in Greenland and has now settled in Gothenburg, while still travelling the world a great deal. Ron conducted three of the largest orchestras and his playfulness and drive gave the whole camp its overall feel. He is the founder of the Dream Orchestra, too.

A model for all Sistemas

I see this camp as a model for the entire Sistema movement. No, we don’t all need to aim for a camp the size of a small town, but we must all note this celebration of joining Sistema students and teachers with other music education programmes and resources—to raise everyone’s levels. It is working in Sweden. Across the country, the largest European Sistema network is coming closer to the larger municipal arts school network. As in many countries, there has historically been some tension between the two, but many are now recognising the advantages they can provide one another if they coordinate, such as increased funding and visibility. My taxi drivers both to and from the airport knew about the music camp and that something special was happening in their town. They didn’t know anything about Sistema, but they knew that kids of all different backgrounds, including the new arrivals (who represent an issue around which there is significant political tension), were doing something big together. They spoke about this with pride as a model for the city they hope to become.

The Side by Side by El Sistema Summer Camp will continue to grow; indeed, they expect to reach 2,500 students in 2019 and to start becoming a destination for programmes from other countries, side by side across borders. We have often written in The World Ensemble and The Ensemble newsletters about the importance of Sistema programmes partnering with other music programmes in their localities and the Swedish example embodies that idea in a world-leading way.


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Eric Booth is a former actor, a businessman, an author and a renowned arts educator. This article of Eric’s comes from The World Ensemble, which, deservedly, carries the epithet of being the only publication that connects the whole worldwide El Sistema-inspired movement. The World Ensemble provides a wide variety of digital means through which to access articles and information on the global Sistema movement and you can access these articles and read more about the publication on the The World Ensemble’s website at http://theworldensemble.org

To find out more about Side by Side, visit the camp's official website at http://www.sidebysidegoteborg.com/