| Publicity | In a Venezuelan slum a young girl practices on her clarinet and dreams a big musical dream; testament to the profound, elevating forces of music. |
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| This week Foreign Correspondent takes off on an inspirational adventure in music to discover how it’s lifting children out of squalor and danger in Latin America. |
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| Genesis da Silva is 13, dedicated to her clarinet, practices five hours a day and dreams of one day playing in the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. Despite her family’s poverty, El Sistema allows her to dare to dream of a classical career. |
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| "The happiness, enjoyment and hope that practice in music brings to the suburbs and poor neighbourhoods undoubtedly it also creates a tremendous barrier against drugs, against violence, and vice, and all that undervalues the existence and that makes it miserable." Jose Antonio Abreu – project founder |
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| On assignment Campbell saw first-hand how dangerous life is when he was caught up in a shooting and held at gun-point by police. |
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| “The beauty of music is a daily antidote for the ugliness around them,” Campbell says. |
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| Orchestra plays | Applause/ Music | 00:00 |
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| CAMPBELL: It’s not just one of the world’s great orchestras, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra is in a class of its own. It’s the showcase of a unique social experiment designed to bring music to the masses. | 00:21 |
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| Music | 00:38 |
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| CAMPBELL: The players have been trained in hundreds of publicly financed youth and children’s orchestras, and in Venezuela, any child from any background can aspire to join it. | 00:49 |
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| Music | 01:05 |
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| GENESIS DA SILVA: My ultimate dream is to be part of an orchestra. | 01:17 |
| Genesis Da Silva | My goal has been to get there and I think that with the effort and the desire that I put in, I can achieve it. | 01:21 |
| Genesis walking to class with friends | CAMPBELL: Genesis da Silva is just 13 but dreams of being a great musician. | 01:31 |
| Genesis practices | Every day after school, she spends five hours playing classical music before going home to practise more. She and her friends come from poor families that can’t afford instruments, let alone lessons, but thanks to a visionary project, they have a chance to pursue their dreams. | 01:44 |
| Kids practising outdoors | It’s known as the National Youth Orchestra System of Venezuela, or as it’s simply called here, “El Sistema”, the system. It’s an inspired program to bring the finest music to the poorest children of Venezuela’s toughest slums. It might sound like a pipe dream, but it’s already brought more than a million kids into the world of classical music. | 02:14 |
| Photos. Abreu conducting | It all began in 1975, when an economist and musician Jose Antonio Abreu hit on the idea that music could steer children from crime. | 02:40 |
| Dr Jose Abreu | DR JOSE ABREU: The happiness, enjoyment and hope that playing music brings to the suburbs and poor neighbourhoods, undoubtedly creates a tremendous barrier against drugs, and against violence and vice and everything that undervalues life and makes it miserable. | 02:52 |
| Kids practising |
| 03:17 |
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| CAMPBELL: It started with just 11 students in a cramped hall, but it’s grown into 220 youth and children’s orchestras – most in poor areas where children have never been exposed to classical music. Every day across the country, 400,000 kids line up for free music lessons. Even the cost of the instruments is covered by State grants and private donations. The local director, Rafael Elster, insists the investment benefits everyone. RAFAEL ELSTER: [Director, Nucleo Sarria Music School] In an orchestra, all the responsibilities | 03:27 |
| SUPER: RAFAEL ELSTER: Director, Nucleo Sarria Music School | are part of the success of this group. If the trumpet player plays wrong or doesn’t come, or doesn’t work as the other ones, the orchestra fails and these communities… | 04:12 |
| Kids practising | the communities need people who do everything and everybody works for the community. That’s what we teach them. So we’re trying to make them better citizens, better people. CAMPBELL: Right, so you could do the same thing with sport for example? RAFAEL ELSTER: No, | 04:25 |
| Rafael Elster | because in sport there’s always a winner and a loser. In this nobody lose, everybody wins so we have to make them feel that the most important thing is that everyone wins. | 04:38 |
| Kids practising | CAMPBELL: The system demands and gets extraordinary commitment from the students. After sitting in school classes from seven to one, they play music until six before they start the journey home. | 04:57 |
| Genesis and other kids leave school for home | RAFAEL ELSTER: So these kids work like 14 hours a day. When they don’t, they just go home and sleep. That’s no time for getting in trouble. CAMPBELL: Most kids in the West like to go home from school and play on the computer. I mean do you have to force these kids to play music? | 04:15 |
| Elster | RAFAEL ELSTER: They are poor people. They don’t have computers. They don’t have toys. They don’t have anything. This is the most valuable thing for them, their instruments, the orchestra. | 05:32 |
| Streets of Caracas | CAMPBELL: The contrast with their home lives couldn’t be greater. Caracas is a city of crowded slums and violent gangs. | 04:47 |
| Genesis walking across square, up stairs | We had to bring a bodyguard to be able to film in Genesis da Silva’s neighbourhood. Her building doesn’t even have a lift. She has to climb twelve floors to her apartment. | 05:53 |
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| GENESIS DA SILVA: It’s very dangerous. People are very involved… it’s always to do with the gangs. | 06:16 |
| Genesis | No-one is really taking care of their life. It’s very difficult. | 06:28 |
| Genesis with clarinet | CAMPBELL: Yet Genesis is happier with her life than many rich teenagers in the West. The beauty of music a daily antidote to the ugliness around her. | 06:40 |
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| GENESIS DA SILVA: When you’re there in the music the most important thing is to know how to enjoy it, and to do it. It also helps to clarify many problems. | 06:57 |
| Genesis in kitchen | CAMPBELL: She’s lucky to have a supportive family, sharing this small apartment with her mother, step-father, grandmother, two brothers, two aunts and two cousins. But nothing can shield them from the mayhem below. | 07:16 |
| Bullet hole in window | In a recent shooting a bullet was fired through their window. GENESIS DA SILVA: Many dead people… many dead people between gangs. | 07:32 |
| Genesis at window | And there are always shootings – which sometimes lead to many deaths. | 07:42 |
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| CAMPBELL: It wasn’t long before we saw just how dangerous this place can be. While we were filming, a man was shot on the street. | 07:50 |
| Police with guns with film crew | As we left the building, we were caught up in the police response. Our bodyguard was disarmed, I was detained and searched. Police have failed to stem the chronic violence here. Jose Abreu who founded the system, believes music is a much better weapon. DR JOSE ABREU: Without a doubt, this is a program that transforms the quality of life in a huge way | 07:59 |
| Abreu | and produces enormous sentiment in the personal and collective lives of children and young people. | 08:24 |
| Leswi practising scales | CAMPBELL: Leswi Pantoja, who’s 26, knows that well. He grew up in a poor slum where he ran with a youth gang. | 08:39 |
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| LESWI PANTOJA: I have many friends who aren’t alive any more… they’re dead. | 08:48 |
| Leswi | Sometimes I meet friends in the street and I ask them how they are. They’re just all right. They don’t have real jobs. They manage to survive, but that’s all. That’s their life. | 08:55 |
| Orchestra, including Leswi, rehearsing |
| 09:13 |
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| CAMPBELL: Leswi Pantoja’s life took a different path after he joined the system. Today he’s a professional musician. Six years ago, he was selected to join the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. It’s made up exclusively of the best students to pass through the system. | 09:19 |
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| LESWI PANTOJA: I think it’s because we’ve known each other for fifteen years – since we were very young. We’ve grown up together as a family, little by little. It’s one of the secrets of why the orchestra sounds as it does, is seen as it is, and triumphs in this way. | 09:49 |
| Leswi playing at beach concert | CAMPBELL: Like all the players, Leswi Pantoja grew up to a Latin beat. When he’s not performing with the orchestra, he still plays Venezuelan salsa with his own band. Before the system, poor neighbourhoods like his never even heard classical music. | 10:26 |
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| LESWI PANTOJA: What you hear is Latin music salsa and merengue. Classical doesn’t really exist. CAMPBELL: Nowadays, every community can enjoy the music of the streets and the concert halls. | 10:55 |
| More beach | DR JOSE ABREU: The wide diversity breaks down artificial barriers between classical and popular music. | 11:18 |
| Abreu | Society is transformed through an artistic experience that brings hope and an aesthetic dimension to life. | 11:25 |
| Orchestra rehearsing | Music | 11:37 |
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| CAMPBELL: Only a handful who finish the system each year are chosen for Simon Bolivar, the peak of the youth orchestras, but Genesis da Silva is sure she can do it. As she watches the orchestra rehearse, she becomes even more determined to perfect her craft. | 11:51 |
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| GENESIS DA SILVA: You don’t try to imitate them, or to be like them, but you make an effort to excel yourself, to get where they are. | 12:14 |
| Genesis’s group prepares to perform | CAMPBELL: An hour later, it’s her turn to shine. After weeks of practice, Genesis’s school group will be performing a concert for their parents and friends. Everything is done as cheaply as possible, but Rafael Elster takes any opportunity to plead for more. | 12:26 |
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| RAFAEL ELSTER: I’m asking to build a new building of 1,000 square metres to house 1500 children – and to purchase 300 musical instruments. | 12:44 |
| Genesis’s group peforms | Music | 12:55 |
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| CAMPBELL: It’s an enthusiastic if uneven performance. Some of the children show exceptional talent, some just play along for fun. Only a few will become professional musicians but the system will leave a life long legacy for all. | 13:01 |
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| RAFAEL ELSTER: The most important thing is that they believe in themselves. They believe that everything they start they can take it to a higher level, they can reach different goals in life. | 13:25 |
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| Music | 13:37 |
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| Reporter: Eric Campbell Camera: David Martin Producer: Vivien Altman Editor : Nick Brenner Research : Lope Gutierrez-Ruiz | 14:00 |