El Sistema - Music To Change Life: Gustavo Dudamel

Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra / Gustavo Dudamel, conductor

Today's most touted young conductor leading his brilliant youth orchestra, a must have!!!

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This year's Glenn Gould Prize winner was Jose Antonio Abreu for his development of El Sistema, the incredibly successful program bringing children to classical music across Venezuela. There are currently 340,000 children, many from disadvantaged families, enrolled in more than a hundred youth orchestras across that country. For those of us not lucky enough to have been in the audience at the Four Seasons Centre last month to hear the jewel in the crown of the program, the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel and experience the exuberance (and excellence) of these young performers first hand, this DVD documents Abreu’s miraculous achievement. David Olds
The documentary film by Paul Smaczny & Maria Stodtmeier explores Venezuela's unique system of music education which takes children from violent slums and turns some of them into world-class musicians. "El Sistema" shows how Venezuelan visionary Jose Antonio Abreu has changed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children over the past three decades.
This lyrical and moving documentary takes us from the barrios of Caracas to the world's finest concert halls. Children from barrios dominated by the gun battles of gang warfare are taken into music schools, given access to music, and taught through the model of the symphony orchestra how to build a better society. Paul Smaczny and Maria Stodtmeier's film finds hope and joy in unlikely places.

Price: $29.98