Five young musicians tuck violas under their chins and press their fingers against the strings, carefully aligning them with the yellow instructional tape.
“Prepare for the pizzicato,” the teacher says.
Each student plucks slightly off-beat.
“Again,” the teacher says, eliciting a string of notes just as dissonant as the first.
But by the eighth attempt they pluck in unison. And to the teacher, that cohesion matters more than tone, pitch or volume.
These children are part of an experimental orchestra for impoverished youth in Albany Park, and they’re learning to play according to the principles of “El Sistema,” an emerging Venezuelan method that’s more about social action than music.
“You are not only responsible for yourself, you are responsible for the whole group,” says teacher Deborah Wanderley dos Santos, 23, a native of Brazil. She believes in the experiment, in part because music saved her from a life of poverty.
To prepare, she studied the method in Venezuela for two months and even played with the top group of its kind in the country, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra.
The project is an offspring of The People’s Music School, which has offered free lessons in the Uptown neighborhood since 1976. Most instruction at the school follows a traditional Western model: Young musicians are given private lessons and generally don’t perform in an orchestra until they advance to a certain level.
El Sistema is different because it assembles the students in an orchestra from the start — before they even touch their instruments — and mainly teaches in a group setting. This gives music education a social structure and the students a bond.
The method was founded in 1975 by musician Jose Antonio Abreu and has spurred more than 220 Venezuelan orchestras with 250,000 youths. Proponents say the publicly funded project has raised an unlikely generation of classical musicians as it also curbs juvenile crime and keeps kids in school.
While most of the orchestra’s members won’t become career musicians, dos Santos says the primary goal is to instill discipline, structure and a general love of music — “to give them the tools to be responsible adults,” she says.
‘Excitement is tangible’
On the first day, three dozen children ages 8 to 12 picked up instruments in the music room of Hibbard Elementary School, 3244 W. Ainslie Ave., and were told to just start playing.
Kids who’d never touched violins began strumming them as if they were guitars. They puffed into flutes, wondering how sound was supposed to come out.
“They were doing all kinds of crazy, wacky, funny things,” said Bob Fiedler, executive director of The People’s Music School.
This was in mid-October. Now they’re tackling the “William Tell Overture” and preparing for their first recital this month.
The budding musicians — most of whom attend Hibbard — practice after school two hours a day, five days a week. They play as a full orchestra or in sections according to instrument, and are expected to practice on their own at home.
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gave Fiedler a grant so he could meet with El Sistema directors at a music conference in California. Other than that, the program has little funding. The instruments are donated. The instructors are volunteers. The elementary school space is free.
As dos Santos weaves around a row of clarinet and trumpet players, she notices form and presence, as well as sound.
“Sit on the tip of your chair, feet flat on the floor,” she says.
Their notes are not always perfect, but the students are engaged and attentive. Some are learning quicker than others, but unlike a typical orchestra there will be no rank or seating according to ability. Dos Santos intends to place the weakest musicians next to the strongest to promote peer teaching.
Hibbard Principal Scott Ahlman was initially skeptical of the rigorous practice schedule, and Fiedler was nervous about letting the students take home their instruments.
But only one of the original 37 students dropped out — because his family moved — and another 10 have joined. So far, all the instruments are intact.
Most are children of Hispanic immigrants; a few are refugees from Sierra Leone. Hibbard is a predominantly low-income school and can’t afford an orchestra program on its own.
Nine-year-old Adilene Alday says she chose to play the violin because she watched her grandfather in Mexico playing one on a video, and she wants to be like him. Her mother, Yolanda Bautista, says in Spanish that she couldn’t pay hundreds of dollars for violin rental and private lessons. If it weren’t for the project, it’s unlikely Adilene would have ever drawn a bow across strings.
“The excitement is tangible,” Ahlman says. “For the children and for the parents.”
A teacher’s story
Dos Santos considers herself part of “a chain of music volunteers.”
At age 10 she began playing violin in a government-operated conservatory, practicing as late as possible to avoid an unstable home. She left at 17 to study music and moved into a house with multiple families, where her constant practice drew hostility.
“My violin was my best friend,” she says.
She performed on the street, making the rent with coins passersby would drop in her open case.
At a music festival in Brazil, she was introduced to Alex Klein, former principal oboist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Chicago violist Richard Young.
“It was clear that she was unusually talented, as well as unusually idealistic and intent on using her talent for the benefit of other people,” Young says.
He asked various local colleges to give her a full-ride scholarship. North Park University was the first to agree; in exchange Klein and Young performed a benefit concert along with South American pianist Ricardo Castro. Young also is teaching there for free.
Following their example, dos Santos began volunteering with The People’s School of Music, soon introducing the El Sistema concept. It reminded her of her own musical upbringing and she felt a drive to duplicate the program here. She recruited fellow North Park music students to help teach the kids.
While dos Santos doesn’t tell the youths much about her childhood, Fiedler says it gives her a deeper understanding of what they go through — and this is something they can sense. She is an immigrant, same as many of them and their parents. She was poor most of her life. She often reminds the kids to care for and appreciate the instruments they’ve been given because she didn’t always have her own violin.
Dos Santos would like to expand the program to help more kids gain discipline and escape their problems through music — the way she did at their age.
“But they should never forget they have to give back the same opportunities to others,” she says.
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They’ve got the music: See more photos of the young musicians at chicagotribune.com/dossantos
