by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Orquesta Juvenil Simón Bolivar
ON TOUR: Two U.S. performances this week by the Symphonic Youth Orchestra will pay tribute to the man behind Venezuela’s successful music education Sistema and raise funds for similar programs throughout the Americas.
The orchestra, whose members are children and youth from the U.S., Spain, Venezuela and other Latin American countries, was set to play Dec. 1 in New York’s Carnegie Hall and Dec. 3 at the Adrianne Arts Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, as part of an international tour that started last month in that city.
The tour pays tribute to maestro José Antonio Abreu, a veteran pianist and music teacher who founded Venezuela’s Sistema, which teaches music and provides instruments for the country’s impoverished youth and established a chain of national youth orchestras.
El Sistema’s most famous student is Gustavo Dudamel, who conducts Venezuela’s Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil Simón Bolívar and is a guest conductor with top orchestras around the world. The tour is sponsored by the non-profit foundation SaludArte, which aims to provide medical and educational programs for children throughout the Americas.
The Symphonic Youth Orchestra was founded 15 years ago in Spain and currently includes 90 musicians between the ages of 14 and 19. Ten U.S. musicians from the New World Symphony recently joined the orchestra, conducted by Pablo Mielgo. The bulk of the musicians — a total of 50 — come from Spain. The rest are from Venezuela (20) and Latin America.
In a related item, Gustavo Dudamel recently completed a U.S. tour with the Israeli Symphonic Orchestra and is performing this week with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, for which he will become full-time director next year. Retiring director Esa-Pekka Salonen praised Dudamel in a recent interview in London, saying the 27-year-old Venezuelan will bring much needed diversity to the orchestra’s program ming and audience.
ONE LINER: Puerto Rican actress Roselyn Sánchez and actor Eric Winter married Nov. 29 at a historic San Juan fort. Hispanic Link.
