Sebastian at El Sistema USA

On Monday last week, Adrienne and I joined Sebastian at the New England Conservatory of Music where he had been invited to address the newly formed Abreu Fellows Program–10 young professionals who are spending one year at NEC with the goal of learning how to transfer Venezuela's "music education miracle" to communities in the United States, hopefully building a national network.

Sebastian, introduced to the Fellows by El Sistema USA Director Mark Churchill as "one of the great pioneers in the field," shared some of his ideas about reciprocal relationships and "meaning-making" through music. He also shared CMW's Anthem video with them.

One of the Abreu Fellows mentioned Sebastian's visit on the blog that she is using to track her year-long experience:

Sebastian Ruth, who, like Yo-Yo [Ma], has preserved his identity as a performing artist within his educational project, sees himself as part of a vast spiderweb.
His institutional links and musical relationships are reciprocal and
interwoven. There is something so beautiful about the spiderweb and its
potential for growth.

We learned that the Abreu Fellows (named for Dr. Jose Antonio Abreu, El Sistema's founder) have a very full schedule between October and June, including internships at Boston area non profits, seminars with guest presenters such as Ben Cameron, Ben Zander, and Yo-Yo Ma, and a winter trip to Venezuela to see El Sistema in action. If possible, we hope to have them down to Providence to check out CMW.

-Heath Marlow, CMW staff