Paterson Music Project: Conference Themes

We’ve all been purely saturated with information these past few days, however, a few themes keep popping up across sessions and conversations, much of which, I find relevant to Paterson Music Project and I imagine would be pertinent to any program.

Identity, Vision, and Values

The first is having a well-thought out, clear, and defined vision for your program. In a session called, “Building an Inclusive Program”, Big Noise Director of Music, Francis Cummings, discussed the importance of having clear identity, vision and values. Big Noise in Scotland spent six months planning, talking, and soul searching before teaching a single student. They use their clear vision (creating social change, community transformation, and creating an orchestra) as the foundation for all the work, projects, and expansion they do. They spent time to answer questions about what they were seeking to do and what was important to them. Without these questions having been completely hashed out, there is nothing concrete guiding your work.

Inspired Teaching Artists

That well defined identity, vision, and set of values needs to be shared with the teachers! Teachers absolutely need to be on board! They are the ones carrying out this vision and actually doing the work with the children! If we are not completely sure of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, working in an El Sistema program can turn into a drag. I think that teachers need to be inspired! Teachers need to talk to other teachers and see other programs. We need to know what other incredible things are going on around the world and how limitless our possibilities are. Today I saw a video of at least 500 children on stage of all levels (and I mean ALL levels) playing Beethoven 9 with choir and orchestra side by side with professional musicians in Sweden. My jaw was on the floor. I had never seen so many people on one stage of such diverse ages and abilities making such powerful and moving music. I had no idea that that was possible! I’m already planning now for how our students at PMP are going to do that very same thing with 500 people in a few years.J Teachers need to be on board not only with the vision, but also with the approach and delivery of that vision. This permeates into the curriculum and daily interactions with students.

Actively Engage Parents and Communities

Abreu says that 50% of El Sistema is the families. Well, if that’s the case, we have a lot of work to do! In our program we engage our community, but in a very passive way. We are always thinking of ways to engage the students more, but their family support is just as important to their success. In Scotland, Big Noise used their six months of prep time to engage their community by playing concerts, holding meetings and knocking on doors! They made a point of making sure there was a strong connection between Big Noise and their community before they even began. For every new site they have opened so far, they have repeated the process because it has been so instrumental in building support and trust for the program. Big Noise also reaches out to the community by sending their musicians to students’ homes where students and their teachers can play together and perform for their families, something they call “Take a Musician Home for Tea”. In Sweden, their program was also started with meetings – that no one attended. They persisted in having meetings every week despite the lack of participation until they had 2, then 3, then 15, then 200 people attending these meetings! They now hold a weekly “Vänsday” – a social gathering of the students and families where they sing songs, eat good food, play games, have guest artists perform and much more! I was most impressed by Big Noise’s adult orchestra called “The Noise”. This orchestra consists of adults from the community, but mostly the parents and grandparents of the students that are already in Big Noise. These participants get to play in a full orchestra with their own set of repertoire and concerts. It was unbelievable fun and exciting to watch this adult orchestra rehearse! You could just see how much more invested these adults are in Big Noise because they understand the hard work and joy that goes into music making. We need to make sure our families have this understanding as well and feel like a part of our program – whether it’s by creating more opportunities for the community to participate in musical activities or just making sure that the voices of our families are heard.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes to create a successful program, however, we have the advantage of sharing our experiences and learning from each other. As noted by Malin Aghed, Director of El Sistema Sweden, it’s easy to hear an inspirational story recapped in 5 minutes and only see immediate success. “Wow, look at that program, they tried implementing a parent orchestra and suddenly all the parents were on board and it’s great!”…The reality is that each success story and inspirational story comes with painstaking work and slow transformation. Each aspect of our program will grow and develop with each day of focused and intentional work.