On a steamy Saturday morning this February, I witnessed a first-ever musical exchange in LaMPara, a site of the Philippine El Sistema program Ang Misyon.  (The name refers to the three cities within greater Manila served by the site: Las Pinas, Muntinlupa, and Paranaque.) LaMPara is located in a squatter’s village built on the precincts of

…except for the overhead lights shining on our two laptops as we wrote as fast as we could, to capture the astonishing experiences we had just had in the Philippines…or Japan…or Brazil, or Vienna, or Istanbul.  We knew we’d remember the overall sense of hope in bleak places, but we didn’t want to forget the

A string octet from the Philippine Sistema-inspired program Ang Misyon visited the U.S. in June for its first “International Awareness and Education Tour;” performing along with them was the program’s founder/director, pianist Jovianney Emmanuel Cruz. I met these dedicated young musicians and their colleagues in the Orchestra of Filipino Youth in the Philippines last year,

Some of the most vivid passages in “Playing for Their Lives” are the portraits of the formidably energetic and dedicated citizen artists we met during our travels, who are leading and shaping Sistema-inspired programs across the world.  From time to time, this blog will feature one or another of these artists.  So please meet Maria Majno…

In early October, Carnegie Hall opened its season with three performances by the Simon Bolívar Orchestra of Venezuela, led by Gustavo Dudamel.  New York Times critics gave them a thumbs down.  But what were they really reviewing?  Here’s my response, published online on “Medium” a week later.   Carnegie Hall opened its 2016-17 season with

Superar Srebrenica is the Sistema-inspired program located in the town where, in 1995, Europe experienced its largest genocidal event since World War II:  the massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs and paramilitary Serbs. The program was founded four years ago by Ismar Poric, a student at the Sarajevo Conservatory, and several of his

Our three inaugural book launch events for Playing For Their Lives — in Maplewood NJ, Boston, and New York — went off beautifully, thanks to many friends whose additions to our readings and remarks really enlivened and intensified the message of the book! In Maplewood on September 22nd, at The Woodland, we were delighted to feature