Content uploaded by Lawrence Scripp
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Lawrence Scripp on Jan 11, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
The Need to Testify:
A Venezuelan Musician’s Critique of El Sistema and his Call
for Reform
A Case Study Interview Report by Lawrence Scripp
New England Conservatory and the Center for Music and the Arts in Education
With contributions from Josh Gilbert
1/11/16 Update – Added clarification of Mazzocchi quotation on p. 47
12/15/15 Update – Minor corrections
Abstract
The Venezuelan violinist Luigi Mazzocchi, concertmaster of the Pennsylvania Ballet Orchestra
and associate concertmaster of the Delaware Symphony, studied for fifteen years in Venezuela’s
El Sistema, rising to become a member of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. Leaving the
system twenty years ago, he moved to the United States, where he has had a successful career as
a professional violinist and educator. Mazzocchi now speaks out about the flaws of El Sistema, as
described in detail by Geoff Baker in his 2014 book El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth. After
considering carefully the testimonies reported by Baker, Mazzocchi recognized and affirmed the
accuracy of these accounts, which challenged the idealized view of El Sistema orchestra training
in Venezuela as a tool leading to social action and as an embodiment of the high standards of a
democratic society. Mazzocchi now feels the need to testify about his experiences in El Sistema.
Despite his gratitude for the musical training it provided, the system nonetheless needs to reform
its working conditions, leadership model, and culture in order to ensure its positive social impact
and better serve as a model for music education in the future.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
2
Mazzocchi corroborates the claims of Baker’s book by depicting excellence in musical
performance seriously compromised by a culture of fear and authoritarianism, a narrow view of
music education, and a lack of accountability and transparency. Mazzocchi understands why
Baker’s informants would not speak on record; fear of retribution directed toward themselves or
their families in Venezuela is very real. Astonished by the clarity of description and critical
analysis that he presumed would never be published due to the secretive and retributive nature of
El Sistema’s administration, Mazzocchi was deeply saddened that El Sistema had not righted the
flaws of its practices he experienced many years earlier. Twenty years after being labeled a
“traitor” for leaving El Sistema and feeling virtually blacklisted in Venezuela, Mazzocchi now
hopes that the ideals of El Sistema’s rhetoric of “social action through music” will take root
outside of Venezuela without the many flaws of the original model. He steadfastly advocates for
El Sistema-inspired programs outside of Venezuela whose leaders are willing to recognize the
limitations of the Venezuelan System and move forward with music education programs
designed and administered in accordance with a fully accountable culture of positive social
impact in and through music.
Part I: Background and Methods of the Case Study Interview
Purpose of the Case Study Interview:
For many who were introduced to the “miracle of El Sistema” through the appearance of José
Antonio Abreu, Gustavo Dudamel, and the experience of listening to and watching the
acclaimed Simón Bolívar Orchestra during its U.S. tour in 2007, the melding of music education
and social action seemed to be in perfect harmony. At New England Conservatory (NEC), where
I founded the Music-in-Education program and the Center for Music-in-Education, El Sistema
was presented to me as a radical shift in the scope and focus of international youth orchestra
development. NEC then published several articles in the Journal for Music-in-Education (JMIE)
(Scripp, Keppel, & Wong, Eds. 2007)1 about El Sistema, one of which included a translation of
Abreu’s stirring acceptance speech on behalf of El Sistema for the Right Livelihood Award in
2000.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1 See http://journal.music-in-education.org, pp. 163-176.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
3
In his published speech Abreu states that:
The orchestra is more than an artistic structure…. For the young, playing music
together is a way of deeply interacting with one another, evoking a devotion to
excellence, the discipline of working together and the interdependence of between
sections, voices, and instruments (JMIE 2007, p. 163).
This is a viewpoint that most musicians would agree upon, and many would cherish. As a
principle for the intrinsic value of a national youth orchestra system, this statement offers insight
into the makings of any successful orchestral experience.
Abreu continues by specifying in somewhat complex and enigmatic ways how orchestral
experience leads to social and personal impact:
… the orchestral community, through its musical message, approaches the
complex equilibrium of multiple, dynamic, and subtle values. This is why the
youth and child orchestras are so valuable as a means of integrating young people
into a social life based upon solidarity as well as being an instrument promoting
personal fulfillment. This shows also how useful and important the work of the
orchestras is in the formation of character: it stimulates the mind and sense,
helping the participants to develop his or her intellectual capabilities and powers
of expression (ibid., p. 163).
Elegantly stated, this richly metaphoric description of the presumed impact of El Sistema
constitutes an inspiring view of the human development goals of orchestral experience that
should be made available to all children and youth. I believe this kind of statement might
convince parents to consider enrolling their children in large after-school music ensemble
programs as a means toward cultivating personal fulfillment and social integration, character
development and self-discipline, artistic expression and intellectual capacity, perhaps all
simultaneously, as youth progress through successful participation in Sistema-inspired programs.
However, when Abreu begins to describe the operations of El Sistema, his claims for its
instrumental value by necessity become more concrete. When he claims that the “structure and
methodology” of his nationwide system “is based upon a style of leadership that is flexible, open,
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
4
and democratic” while serving “the integration of as many children and youth as possible,” or
that results show “improved attention and communication capabilities as well as improved
understanding of mathematics” (ibid., p. 164), this suggests that evidence for the impact of El
Sistema has been gathered and empirically verified, but this is not the case. When he states that
“a majority of the children and juveniles belong to the groups that are the most vulnerable and
excluded in all of the Venezuelan society” and that “in order to get admitted to their musical
studies, the children and the juveniles have to do well in regular school” (ibid. p. 164), the reader
may be unsure how a program open to all children can abide by this policy. How is it possible
that a large-scale national system of extremely intensive classical music youth orchestra training
could simultaneously provide free instruction, instruments, and community núcleos (music schools)
open to all youth, elevate families from poverty and communities from drug addiction and gang
warfare, and render the most exquisite and passionate performances imaginable of the most
difficult pieces of the classical repertoire?
At some point such “miracles” require more than rhetoric to back them up. To those who
wish to adopt or adapt this system outside of Venezuela — those committed to actualizing
Abreu’s extensive, yet uncorroborated claims of social impact of El Sistema in Venezuela — the
links between demonstrations of musical passion and expertise and tales of social action that
transform the lives of students from deprived socio-economic circumstances need to be made
concretely and persuasively. Given high expectations of success, there needs to be more evidence
than romanticized anecdotes to declare that an extremely competitive and intensive form of
orchestral training results in measurably positive social impact for youth, their families, and their
communities.
An ethnographic study of El Sistema in Venezuela is published
When Geoff Baker, a scholar of Latin American music, published El Sistema: Orchestrating
Venezuela’s Youth, it became obvious to some leaders of El Sistema-inspired programs that virtually
no critical investigation of Venezuela’s state-sponsored National System of Youth and Children’s
Orchestras existed. In his book, Baker reports his extensive investigation of the program from the
perspective of past leaders and a bevy of former and current teachers and organizers in the
national youth orchestra system, as well as cultural authorities who were not a part of El Sistema
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
5
or necessarily on good terms with Abreu. For the first time, evidence from detailed historical
inquiry, combined with a rigorous ethnographic analysis based on interviews with musicians and
teachers outside of the El Sistema leadership circle, provided a comprehensive view of the
tensions between the rhetoric, goals, actions, and perceived results of this highly acclaimed
program. From its opening chapter, the book offers no challenge to the reported musical success
of El Sistema’s performance standards. Concerts were impressive and staged brilliantly to amplify
the message of classical music excellence in Venezuela. Yet the musical excellence of the top-level
orchestras should not be surprising to those who have produced high-quality youth orchestras all
over the world: a centralized, highly competitive system of extremely intense musical practice
provided for hundreds of thousands of youths necessarily results in excellent performances by the
top orchestras. It should no longer be unexpected that extensive government financial support for
free instruments, food, uniforms, and instruction, coupled with large amounts of time spent on
orchestral rehearsal, should result in exemplary levels of group, if not individual, performance.
Neither is it surprising that these long hours and highly structured and supervised programs
would result in social impact, if only because, like in other youth enterprises, children and youth
spend a greater proportion of their lives in safe learning environments, free from the chaos of
street gangs or other challenges of poverty. According to Baker, however, the methods by which
these achievements are made possible demand a more extensive and objective analysis.
Baker’s book raises fundamental questions about the methods used and the extent of their
social impact. His rigorous examination of these methods and idealized outcomes provides
grounds for skepticism about the purported social impact on children, their families, local
communities, and the musical culture of Venezuela. Unfortunately, the knee-jerk response to his
critical report on El Sistema by many leaders outside of Venezuela was mostly dismissive or
defensive, and sometimes relentlessly disparaging. Such critics, who may find it difficult to
accommodate any challenge to Venezuela’s official narrative of success, appear not to
understand why a professional researcher in ethnomusicology would vigorously challenge
rhetoric claiming that, for example, “the affluence of spirit” achieved through music necessarily
overcomes economic poverty or creates a deeper understanding and application of democratic
values.
For researchers, progressive music educators, and those more familiar with the long-term
day-to-day practices of El Sistema, Baker’s critical insights provide a reality check on Abreu’s
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
6
rhetoric. Baker’s conclusion from his interviews with El Sistema teachers and leaders, assured of
their anonymity, is that many rank-and-file participants in El Sistema do not see clearly the
connection between the program’s musical results and the social qualities described and
championed in the public description of the program. Therefore, once Baker’s research is
understood as a legitimate lens on the methods of El Sistema in Venezuela, Sistema-inspired
leaders can constructively apply findings from his critical analysis to the future manifestations of
El Sistema across the world. As a welcome change from the uncritical acceptance of Abreu’s
message that youth orchestras represent an ideal model for democracy, that extensive hours of
rehearsal focused almost exclusively on rote performance constitutes a comprehensive music
education, that all students are equally likely to succeed in the system, or that most participants
come from poverty-stricken families, Baker’s book insists that these claims be carefully examined,
so that the future dissemination of Sistema-inspired programs provides more specific and
compelling evidence of these claims as they go forward. Another purpose of the book is to inspire
music educators and youth organizations outside of Venezuela to take on the responsibility to
become research-based organizations whose members can investigate the relationship between
the means and ends of program delivery by gathering and analyzing evidence for the connection
between the philosophical rhetoric and the reality of its practices.
Genesis of the Case Study Interview Protocol
As a professional educator and researcher, I immediately noticed that there were very little data,
let alone critical analyses, regarding El Sistema practices in Venezuela. In my zeal to learn more
about El Sistema, I asked the original group of Abreu Fellows,2 who were chaperoned by Sistema
leaders, to report on their experiences traveling in Venezuela. The student reports were all
effusively positive on the surface about the quality of the ensemble musical performances and the
passionate spirit of Venezuelan youth. The Fellows were truly amazed by the intensity and
quantity of rehearsal hours needed for this success, despite the poor conditions of instruments
and rehearsal spaces. Observations were far more vague, however, with regard to the quality of
instruction the students received. Beneath the surface, observations arose of heavy doses of rote
instruction, extremely uneven teacher quality, and the peculiar phenomenon of highly successful
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 From 2009 to 2014, NEC hosted a fellowship program to prepare postgraduates and music professionals to better
understand the Venezuelan model of El Sistema in order to create Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
7
ensemble performance yet disturbingly poor individual musical skills. The Fellows and I were all
led to believe that this program was emphatically about social impact, yet no rigorous evidence
or analysis of the purported impact on young musicians existed, only stories of saving youth from
drugs and poverty, ostensibly because they trained night and day to be a part of a youth
orchestra system. Abreu’s rhetoric was inspiring, but hard to pin down.
It was not long before I began to think that the unique contribution of El Sistema to the
rest of the world might be judged eventually by the replication of its orchestral performance
quality by organizations that could produce unequivocal evidence of social impact. Having
founded the Conservatory Lab Charter School in 1998, in 2010 I was very glad to witness its
transformation into an experimental in-school Sistema-inspired program led by David Malek
and Rebecca Levi, both part of the original team of Abreu Fellows. Rebecca was inspired by El
Sistema leadership to emphasize the inseparable aims of both musical and social development for
the younger students. In her journals, she adopted the view that “music is a means, but it is also
an end,” a statement she took to mean that “El Sistema is a social and a musical program, and it
doesn’t have to choose!” (personal communication, 2010).
I have since reported on the potential impact of El Sistema on music education policies
based in part on the success of the Sistema-inspired program at the Conservatory Lab Charter
School in terms of academic and performance achievement for socioeconomically challenged
students in relation to the reported ideals of El Sistema, most recently expressed by Tunstall and
Eric Booth, a primary mentor for the Abreu Fellows (Scripp, et al., 2013). But the emergence of
Baker’s critique of El Sistema suddenly challenged my perceptions of the validity of El Sistema’s
practices in Venezuela. Reporting interview data from field practitioners and former students in
the system protected by anonymity, Baker questioned the means and methods by which El
Sistema has succeeded. These sources insisted that El Sistema is an extremely secretive and
autocratic organization that has not been held accountable for either its management or its
treatment of its teachers and students, nor for gathering evidence for social impact beyond
anecdotes and musical performances.
I was determined to get closer to the realities of El Sistema as described in Baker’s book
by getting in touch with Luigi Mazzocchi, a former member of El Sistema who currently has a
professional musical career in the U.S. I hoped that he was familiar with Baker’s book and would
be willing to discuss its content in relation to his experience in El Sistema. In fact, Mazzocchi—a
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
8
violinist who had advanced over the course of fifteen years from a beginner to the rank of
concertmaster in Barquisimeto’s top professional youth orchestra, after winning a violin
competition, finally gaining admission to the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra—had just finished
reading Baker’s book.
The purpose of the interview project was to explore the considerable gap that exists
between the idealistic and carefully controlled messages from El Sistema’s leadership and Baker’s
contrasting reports from practitioners. In short, I decided to explore a single case study of a
named informant to give a face to the assertions voiced anonymously in El Sistema: Orchestrating
Venezuela’s Youth, statements that Mazzocchi would either corroborate or refute.
After I discovered that Mazzocchi had read the book, I proposed that he read it again
very carefully and participate in a series of interviews to be recorded, transcribed, and analyzed
under the following conditions:
• That Mazzocchi would agree to answer and elaborate on my questions related to his past
experiences in El Sistema and the accounts of unnamed sources in Baker’s book;
• That once these interviews were concluded, Mazzocchi would have the chance to review
the transcriptions and the final report for accuracy, omissions, clarification, and further
reflection on his experiences and their relation to Baker’s work.
This case study interview project became viable when Mazzocchi agreed to go public with his
comments, reflections, and affirmations of the central claims of Baker’s book.
Mazzocchi’s preliminary response
Mazzocchi was motivated to do the interview because, after a careful second reading of Baker’s
book, he felt that the book generally was “dead on” with its portrayal of the practices of El
Sistema as he experienced them twenty years ago. Having not suspected that such an
investigative report about El Sistema’s ground-level experience would be written or that anyone
would engage him in an interview process intended for publication in relation to the book,
Mazzocchi’s memories and feelings about his childhood and youth experiences flooded back to
his consciousness in ways that shocked him into the realization that, however much he owed to
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
9
El Sistema for his formative orchestral training, he can now see, twenty years later, that there
were serious flaws in the system. He now concludes that these failings contributed to his decision
to leave El Sistema to pursue the life and career he now enjoys as a performer, teacher, and
teaching artist in the U.S. Thus, Baker’s inquiry into El Sistema’s practices enabled Mazzocchi to
reevaluate his experiences independently of the system’s carefully crafted slogans such as “the
artistic development of the young becomes a social revolution.”
Now well aware that critics of Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth strongly contest the validity of
Baker’s research process, which drew mostly from (anonymized) field practitioners and cultural
observers rather than the current El Sistema leadership, Mazzocchi understands that
guaranteeing anonymity is a standard practice for investigative reporting when informants have
much to lose by testifying publicly against powerful people and their well-financed government
programs. While critics of Baker’s book are willing to attack the testimony reported there as
unsubstantiated hearsay, Mazzocchi agrees that Baker was ethically bound to protect the identity
of his sources, which Mazzocchi views as credible. Finally, Mazzocchi fully comprehends that the
identification of an informant willing to go public, such as himself, is not only an important step
toward establishing the veracity of Baker’s methods and conclusions, but also provides an
opportunity for him to comment on what other Venezuelan musicians he knows think of the
book.
This case study also creates the opportunity to understand the experience of progressing
through the hierarchical levels of El Sistema, because Mazzocchi had a long-term relationship
with the program as a young child, as a member of a local youth-turned-professional orchestra,
touring with the top-echelon Simón Bolívar orchestra, and as a teacher and soloist linked with
many other orchestras and núcleos. It provides the perspective of someone who left the program
and now returns to analyze it with added insight into program operations, the culture of the
organization, and the extent to which the stated goals of the program were met.
Structure of the Case Study Interview Data Collection
The interview process encompassed five steps: one introductory call and four formal interviews.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
10
Focus of Data Collection
Function of the Data Collection
1. Introductory phone call to go over the
protocol with Luigi Mazzocchi (LM), then
provide a background history of all roles in all
stages of involvement with El Sistema,
elaborating on points LM chooses to
comment on from Geoff Baker’s book, El
Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth
(ESOVY).
Initial outline of LM’s story growing up and
leaving El Sistema and his initial reactions
about the veracity of ESOVY descriptions
and reports.
2. Interview 1: What was it like being in El
Sistema and what did it mean to you?
Open-ended story, explorations of emergent
themes of the narrative
3. Interview 2: Tell me about your relationships
with leadership figures in El Sistema? How
was it that you left El Sistema and what were
the consequences of leaving El Sistema?
Probing for detailed memories of personal
interaction in the fabric of student-teacher,
student-administrator, performer-conductor,
performer-administrative relationships
4. Interview 3: What were parts of Baker’s
ESOVY that ring true to you? What more
can you tell us of the “controversial” sections
of the book in relation to your personal
experiences? What do you make of the
reaction to ESOVY on social media and in
conversations with your friends?
Tracing the relationships between findings
reported on specific pages of Baker’s ESOVY
and LM’s sense of reality within his El
Sistema experiences.
5. Interview 4: Tell me about your experience
participating in a public panel discussion with
other leaders of El Sistema-inspired programs
in Philadelphia [Panel entitled “The El
Sistema Spectrum: Music Education and
Identity” in Philadelphia, October 14th,
2015].
Mazzocchi’s reaction to panelists on the topic
of “The multiple platforms of El Sistema, its
revered success in the field of music
education, as well as its complex relationship
with identity.”
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
11
All interviews were digitally recorded and then transcribed, and time was allotted for corrections,
additions, and omissions by Mazzocchi with the option to omit, revise, or otherwise clarify parts
of the testimony reported in the text of the final analysis of the interview.
Part 2: Findings Organized by The Narrative Threads and Reflections
Distilled from the Mazzocchi Interviews
Luigi Mazzocchi’s statements about his El Sistema experiences are drawn first from his initial
conversation with me in July 2015 and later from the follow-up interviews in September and
October 2015. These reflections represent an unraveling of Mazzocchi’s emotionally charged life
of intensive musical training, performances, and teaching experiences from ages 9 to 25 in
Venezuela, now filtered through the lens of his experience twenty years after he relocated to the
U.S. to continue his career in music and education.
Thus, Part 2 of this report is based on the analysis and refinement of his reflections that
are here organized by five themes emerging directly out of qualitative analyses of the transcribed
interviews. This first section captures the profound ambivalence Mazzocchi feels toward El
Sistema, based on the way his joyful participation and trust in the system was later shattered
when its leader, José Antonio Abreu, viewed his need to pursue personal and musical growth
beyond the scope of El Sistema’s resources and opportunities as an act of disloyalty.
While living in the U.S. for the next twenty years, he spoke only of his gratitude toward El
Sistema. However, after the publication of Baker’s book, Mazzocchi struggled with long-
repressed memories of events that led to his “excommunication” from El Sistema. This led to the
realization that the deep flaws in El Sistema exposed by Baker—which he had naively ignored as
“normal” while growing up in El Sistema—required a reform of its culture and a revision of its
claims for the positive social impact on youth of an orchestral training system.
Shaken by these revelations, Mazzocchi felt the need to testify clearly about the extreme
ambivalence of having thrived in, been cast aside by, and now advocating for El Sistema as a
remarkable orchestra training system that nonetheless needs to address serious questions about its
working conditions, leadership model, organizational culture, and claims of social impact, for the
good of its future dissemination as an inspiration for music programs outside of Venezuela.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
12
THEME 1: Mazzocchi’s Profound Ambivalence about the Methods and Rewards of
Growing Up in El Sistema
What I love most in life is being a musician … I owe that to El Sistema.
From the start, Mazzocchi made it clear that he is completely indebted to El Sistema for his life
in music, which all began when he was urged by his mother to overcome his initial reluctance to
join the system. He discovered what it was like to become a performing musician after only two
weeks of violin lessons.
They brought out a violin, and they brought me to a corner in the middle of that
house, and a guy, older than me, showed me how to hold the instrument and the
bow, and I remember I was very confused because he showed me how to play G
and D two open string notes, and I was just alternating between G and D and I
was looking at my mother like I didn't know what was going on. And then he said,
great, great, we going to see if we can get you a violin. Then he looked at my
mother and said, “if you have the means to buy him a violin, then you should do
that immediately because next week we have a concert, and we would like him to
play in this concert.” So I played that piece, and it was only two minutes, and that
was my beginning with El Sistema.
Soon afterwards, Mazzocchi’s participation in El Sistema consisted of attending daily rehearsals
and experiencing the growing excitement of putting together performances for enthusiastic
parents and other members of the local community, a routine he maintained for the fifteen years
of his youth and professional youth orchestra experience.
I don't remember how often it was at the beginning, but it became like pretty
much a daily thing. And we were always in a hurry. We had to learn things in a
hurry, had to do everything fast like that first week.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
13
At the same time, Mazzocchi gradually began to realize that a commanding figure who had a
penchant for suddenly showing up at his rehearsals, a man who some kids jokingly referred to as
“the Führer” and “who made everyone tremble,” was Abreu, the leader and arbitrator of the
youth orchestra system that extended across the whole of Venezuela.
From Adoration to Excommunication
Mazzocchi’s journey from the first stages of playing open strings on the violin, and his many
years at the back of the Barquisimeto Youth Orchestra, led eventually to his advancement to the
position of a well-paid soloist and teacher after the youth orchestra achieved professional status in
Barquisimeto. Receiving a “merit rating” for orchestra participation “qualified [him] to receive
funds for lessons with master teachers.” Winning a concerto competition created the opportunity
for Mazzocchi to join the top-level Simón Bolívar Orchestra in Caracas, to continue performing
as a soloist, and to teach in many of the Sistema núcleos in Venezuela. As such, he became
acquainted with the most important figures in El Sistema. By the time he left, he had attracted
the attention of senior administrators such as Igor Lanz, Pedro Álvarez, and Carlos Méndez,
earned the admiration and respect of the young Gustavo Dudamel, and even “got up the nerve”
to have a few private conversations with Abreu himself, the founder of El Sistema whose
inspirational speeches about the positive value of the orchestra experience for youth Mazzocchi
claimed always “gave him chills.”
His cumulative experiences as a child in the orchestra programs and seminarios (highly
intensive multi-day training sessions) provided a foundation for his technical expertise, while
cultivating a fervent passion for orchestral music and social bonding with his fellow orchestra
musicians. In his mid-teens he developed a sense of pride and empowerment through his hard
work in El Sistema that resulted in him becoming a professional musician in the youth orchestra
and later achieving his ultimate success as a performer, soloist, and teacher with El Sistema’s top
orchestra.
Moreover, influenced by his mother’s determination to provide opportunities for a more
comprehensive musical and general education, Mazzocchi attended music classes outside of El
Sistema, gradually became increasingly motivated to attend public school, and earned a high
school diploma, all while cultivating a strong interest in math and physics. The young Mazzocchi
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
14
succeeded in attaining his academic goals, despite extensive rehearsal and all-day seminarios that
often limited his ability to go to school and keep up with his work. Thus, it was both his musical
success and his intellectual pursuits outside of music that, as Mazzocchi tells it, fueled his desire to
pursue life goals beyond the realm of El Sistema.
After winning the violin competition that led to his admission into the Simón Bolívar
Orchestra, Mazzocchi requested time off from the orchestra to play more solo performances and
prepare for other competitions, but his request was turned down. He was told instead that he
should fit solo appearances around playing in the orchestra, because El Sistema “always had to
come first in his life.” At that time Mazzocchi suddenly began to realize, “it was not possible to
pursue my personal musical goals in El Sistema,” and it “doesn’t matter what I do by myself.”
Indeed, he grasped that “I wasn't as important to El Sistema as El Sistema was important to me.”
Traveling with the Simón Bolívar Orchestra provided many thousands of hours of
musical experience that qualified Mazzocchi to seek admission to degree programs and
performance opportunities in the U.S. Sensing his dissatisfaction with the limitations of El
Sistema orchestral performance, and after Mazzocchi had taken summer lessons in Venezuela
with a visiting Juilliard violin professor, his violin teacher told him it was his own decision if he
wanted to study overseas so that he could get a degree to validate his achievement in music
outside of Venezuela and build an international career as a soloist.
Out of respect for El Sistema, Mazzocchi decided to inform Abreu of his plans to study
overseas and return to Venezuela to rejoin the Venezuelan system. Fully expecting advice for
succeeding with his plans, Abreu instead immediately pushed back: “Don’t do this; we have plans
for you; you have no need to go overseas; everything you need [is] in Venezuela,” despite
Mazzocchi’s reassurance that he would “go for only a couple of years and then come back.”
Twenty years after the fact, Mazzocchi remembers Abreu’s final words as clearly as if it were
yesterday: “If you leave now, it will be as if you never existed [to me],” after which Abreu
abruptly turned away, never to speak to him again.
It was then that Mazzocchi knew he had to resign from the orchestra in order to fulfill his
career aspirations, without any assurance that he would ever be allowed to rejoin El Sistema or
pursue his artistic goals in Venezuela.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
15
Discovery and personal transformation
As a consequence of his yearning to pursue musical studies overseas, Mazzocchi’s feelings about
El Sistema became increasingly mixed. His decision to leave Venezuela meant that he would no
longer be able to return to the musical life in which he had thrived since he was 9 years old. At
the age of 25 he sensed that he would have to live with this profound ambivalence for the rest of
his life. As he began to reflect deeply upon his El Sistema experiences twenty years later, he
noted:
In my personal point of view [it] ended up being a great thing that El Sistema
offered me. I can't tell you how much harder it would have been for family and
myself to get a musical education at that time in Venezuela, but also having been
kicked out [of El Sistema] was a great lesson, because I was able to find my own
ways and measure myself in other arenas, and have things that I have nowadays
that I wouldn't have, if I stayed.
Luigi Mazzocchi Encounters Geoff Baker’s El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth
For many years, Mazzocchi had been able to suppress his memory of the incident with Abreu
and to keep his “excommunication” from El Sistema in abeyance. But, in the fall of 2014, he
discovered Baker’s book. Reading the accounts of life in El Sistema described by Baker’s
anonymous sources, Mazzocchi’s reaction was amazement at the accuracy and insight of this
critical study. Upon further reflection, Mazzocchi felt a “great sadness” that twenty years after
leaving his homeland, the many questionable practices in El Sistema he had erased from his
memory after he came to the U.S. had not been addressed or corrected. His ambivalence toward
El Sistema grew again, now dredging up unsettling memories of his youth orchestra experiences.
I want to point out that I was in shock by reading this [Geoff Baker’s] book
because this book points out many problems or many things that most don’t know
about El Sistema that happened behind the scenes. Because all these things that
this book talks about, I had seen in El Sistema in Venezuela twenty years ago and
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
16
because El Sistema has such a huge propaganda machine behind it, I believed
that all those things maybe were somehow soft [not concrete] because when I was
a kid, I saw these things and I was always told that it was normal, that those things
happened everywhere and it was normal. I thought those things were normal
[because] I believed the El Sistema propaganda, and I thought that maybe they
had solved them [by now]. But by reading this book, I realized that the same
problems that I saw and lived twenty years ago are still there.
Later in his interviews, Mazzocchi also made clear that he did not consider Baker’s book to be an
attack on El Sistema and its leadership, but rather an opportunity to face the problematic aspects
of the system and finally rectify the aspects of the program that run counter to its claims,
particularly in the area of its social impact on the youth it serves.
I recommended [that] everybody read this book because it wasn’t just a critical book to
destroy El Sistema, but just to point out things that El Sistema could improve in Venezuela and
that Sistema-based programs in other countries should try to avoid, or should learn from.
After reading Baker’s book, Mazzocchi now believes that El Sistema is an inspiration for youth
orchestra development, yet much in need of critical analysis, so that leaders of Sistema-inspired
programs outside of Venezuela can provide a musical education that has evolved beyond the
narrowly focused orchestral training that the original model provides. The didactic and
authoritarian pedagogical methods of El Sistema, from Mazzocchi’s perspective, should have
been acknowledged and rectified many years ago.
Mazzocchi’s deep understanding of Baker’s book, his wide network of communications
with former and current Sistema figures, and his agreement to be interviewed extensively
regarding his feelings about his musical career in and beyond El Sistema, provide a way for him
to resolve the ambivalence he felt towards El Sistema in Venezuela by now focusing on the
reform of El Sistema for the sake of Sistema-inspired programs outside of Venezuela.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
17
THEME 1 Interview Data Summary
Mazzocchi’s narrative of growing up inside El Sistema changed when it ended suddenly with his
exclusion from the system by its founder and leader, Dr. Abreu. Now deeply ambivalent about
his experiences, Mazzocchi is at once extremely grateful for his musical training and his
experiences as a violinist in El Sistema, yet deeply troubled by the organizational methods and
practices still in place in the its youth orchestra network.
Mazzocchi’s feeling of deep ambivalence is based on:
• The joy and excitement of creating high quality performances of classical orchestral
music
• The autocratic nature of El Sistema’s founding leader, José Antonio Abreu, which
resulted in Mazzocchi’s “excommunication” from the system after fifteen years of
participation.
THEME 2: El Sistema is an Orchestral Training Network, not a Music Education
Program
Abreu’s vision of El Sistema is described in many different ways in his speeches and publications:
a human development project, a music education program, a strategy for social action. Yet for
Mazzocchi, it is first and foremost a highly centralized, government-funded organization
comprised of youth orchestras, one that provides scant evidence for any claim other than that,
given long hours of rehearsal, young children can learn canonical works of the orchestral
literature on the one instrument they choose to pursue. It is decidedly not a comprehensive or
progressive music education program.
Baker makes clear that in its origins, El Sistema was primarily committed to developing
an orchestra of Venezuelans to perform classical music for Venezuelans, and it was funded as a
cultural resource project led by the eventual Minister of Culture, José Antonio Abreu. Over time,
the system morphed into a youth orchestra program designed to bring classical music not only to
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
18
the elite, but to the poorer districts of Venezuela as well. Then the purpose of El Sistema
changed focus to the social impact of bringing classical music to all. However, the underlying
premise remains the same: the provision of orchestral training, adapted to an expanding system
of youth orchestras.
For Mazzocchi, El Sistema simply refers to a method of dissemination in Venezuela,
nothing more: “El Sistema is not an education system. It’s an organizational system of orchestras
that started in Caracas and then spread to everywhere else in Venezuela.” Yet public relations
materials often refer to El Sistema as a music education program, which for Mazzocchi is not a
credible claim. A formal music education ideally includes studies in theory, solfège (i.e., sight
singing), history, analysis, interpretive styles, orchestra, chamber music, composition,
improvisation, and extracurricular courses, not merely limited to taking lessons and attending
orchestral rehearsals. In contrast, Mazzocchi reports that,
El Sistema was all about focusing on the orchestra repertoire and providing some
solfège, but it wasn't very formal. In the conservatory it was formal; you had to go
to twice a week and they gave you homework, and you got textbooks and things
like that. … My mother also signed me up at the local conservatory [which was
not associated with El Sistema at that time] so that I could get a more complete
musical education.
Furthermore, there was no evidence of a music curriculum other than learning to play an
instrument well enough to learn orchestral parts, and the instruction in lessons and huge amounts
of rehearsal time was almost entirely characterized by long hours of rote learning. Therefore, as
Mazzocchi bluntly describes, “it’s not really an educational system, because … if you do
something 22 or more hours a week, at some point, you’ll start getting good at it, that’s all.”
Although they regarded it as an exciting and inspiring way to learn to play classical
literature, the young Mazzocchi and his mother considered large ensemble performance in El
Sistema to be necessary, though not sufficient, for providing a comprehensive, formal education
in music. However, many in Venezuela regarded El Sistema’s orchestra training as an entirely
adequate form of education, to the point of recommending to young children that they not
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
19
expand the range of their musical education or even continue their academic learning outside of
their obligations to El Sistema:
Some El Sistema leaders or administrators told us not to go to another orchestra
or conservatory or even attend elementary school. They said, “why are you
going, you are wasting your time?” But I did take solfège and history of music that
were not provided by El Sistema, at least at the time. Later on, they started
creating classes that were sort of informal … we learned to perhaps play recorder
in El Sistema and some solfège, but it was the beginning of something that wasn't
very formal.
Mazzocchi also agrees that El Sistema’s training process, by which musicians immerse themselves
in the performance of classical orchestral music, was largely rote, haphazard, and sometimes
abusive in terms of long hours spent on inefficient rehearsal techniques. In El Sistema, there
seemed to be a relatively thin line between exhortation and admonition, encouragement and
reproach, in ways that tended to alienate students who were not wholly dedicated to putting in
personal practice time in addition to the long hours of rehearsal.
Further evidence that El Sistema represents a training rather than an education in music
is indicated by the fact that, as an El Sistema teacher, Mazzocchi received no professional
guidance to deal with the subtleties and nuances of teaching strategies that went beyond rote,
didactic instruction, and no proven techniques for positive engagement of students as proactive
learners. Reflecting on his teaching experience since El Sistema, he reports,
I thought I had learned a lot more as a teaching artist with the Philadelphia
Orchestra training to be a teaching artist. I had learned a lot more how to teach
music, how to be an educator, than I ever did in Venezuela. In that sense, my
view of music is a lot broader than just a symphony orchestra. For others to say
that El Sistema is the future of classical music, I believe is a very narrow way for
conductors such as Simon Rattle to think about his own work, his own career, I
guess, which is conducting symphony orchestras. I think that music is a lot more
than that. Of course, I would love for every student that I see in public schools to
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
20
know the details in symphonies and to have a conversation about different
recordings and things like that. I think that would be great, but I don’t think
that’s all there is to music. I really think that’s a very narrow observation.
THEME 2 Interview Data Summary
Based on reflection on his long experience with El Sistema, Mazzocchi takes a far more
grounded view of the purpose, structure, and meaning of the program than is usually expressed
by the inner circle of its leadership. It is important to him that a program narrowly focused on
intensive orchestral training not be confused with what constitutes a high quality musical
education. For Mazzocchi, the summary below makes these distinctions clear:
El Sistema in Venezuela is primarily an expansion of a highly centralized, state-sponsored
youth orchestral training program:
• Unprecedented amount of time spent on classical orchestral repertoire rehearsal
• Training on only one instrument
• Success in program measured by level of seating in the orchestra
• Virtually only European classical music as cultural program
• Relatively few opportunities for performance of solo repertoire
El Sistema in Venezuela is not yet a model for providing a comprehensive or progressive
music education:
• No curriculum provided for solfège, theory, music history, analysis, composition, or
improvisation
• No standard pedagogy
• No teacher training, certification, or evaluation of teaching
• No emphasis on world music or contemporary compositions
• Mostly rote drill and practice methods
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
21
Having made these distinctions for El Sistema in Venezuela, Mazzocchi finds no reason why the
adaptation to the ideals of El Sistema should not enhance or become a principal part of a
comprehensive music education or a resource for music in education organizations established
outside Venezuela. For Mazzocchi, the question becomes: how could El Sistema create an ideal
balance between an orchestral training program and a music education program that includes
partnerships with schools and other cultural organizations?
THEME 3: Success Despite and Because of El Sistema’s Extreme Working
Conditions
Abreu instilled in everybody in El Sistema that always we’re looking for excellence and if it’s not there, we
have to push harder and the best will come through.
What makes El Sistema an extremely successful orchestral training program? Mazzocchi
answers that it takes extreme methods of rehearsal and includes seemingly limitless amounts
of time and energy:
• Starting with roughly 22 hours a week amounts to roughly 1100 hours per year (50 weeks
x 22 hours).
• This graduates to 30 or more hours, plus some students spend significant time in the
morning on personal practice. Thus, the yearly total can climb to an astonishing 2,100+
hours per year (50 weeks x (30 hours of rehearsal + 12 hours of practice)). In other words,
El Sistema students may engage in music making for 42 hours per week, two hours more
than the standard work week.
• Given that there are 168 hours per week, assuming eight hours of sleep per night leaves
112 waking hours (168 – 8 x 7). Therefore, on the average, music making can take up
38% of their waking hours (42 hours per week ÷ 112 waking hours).
By any account, this prodigious investment of time and resources resembles the conditions
normally only associated with the development of world-class expertise. Yet, on top of those
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
22
“regular hours,” El Sistema students spent significantly more time preparing repertoire in
summer seminarios, playing music almost continuously from 9am to midnight:
When school was over, we did one or two of what we call seminarios. And the idea
was to prepare one piece or one specific program that had to be performed during
the next season. … usually, we had to move there for a week or a couple of weeks.
So, they would find a place that was like a retreat place, and they would have
lodging and food for us. And, yeah, we had a whole program starting 9:00 in the
morning; sometimes it was 11:30 or midnight and we were still rehearsing. So
those specific times, yes, it was, maybe 18 hours a day of work. We would
probably have sectionals in the morning, then maybe some kind of an audition
where people played “one by one” right after lunch, larger sectionals in the
afternoon and the complete orchestra rehearsal in the evening.
By the time the 9-year-old beginner had become a 17-year-old soloist with the Barquisimeto
professional youth orchestra, Mazzocchi had easily spent over 14,000 hours in the program,
including personal practice.
Things got even more intensive when preparing for tours. During those times, the Simón
Bolívar Orchestra worked endlessly, sometimes to the point of injury:
They close themselves all day to rehearse to the point that the young student[s]
don’t go to school or have to miss lots of days of school, because they prepare all
these big repertoires to travel for six months all over Venezuela, for six months all
over, you know, America, Europe, whatever. So they do work very, very long
hours (I am referring to the Simón Bolívar Orchestra B – the one Dudamel
conducts nowadays).
Sometimes we [would] get injured, too, from too much playing, and we would
have to take a break. A few times, El Sistema would have a doctor there to take
care of us. Or they would have somebody buy medicines, usually for some
muscular ailment. It didn't happen that much, but of course, you would see it. I
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
23
always thought it was what we had to do. It was a risk we had to take to overcome
the next challenge.
It was a culture of excessive work, where youth and young professionals were continually asked to
break through the normal boundaries of work-life balance and health concerns. The work ethic
also compromised the chances of a good education outside of music, to the point where young
Mazzocchi and his mother became concerned and insisted on attending school whenever
possible, despite the pressure to put in ever more hours of practice:
This guy would even stand in rehearsals and ask how come he didn't see people
practicing during the day before the rehearsals. Rehearsals were mostly in the
afternoon and at night. That people were required to practice on their individual
instruments before rehearsal when some of us, like me, were still going to grade
school at the time was disturbing. Even though we had to go to school, he would
say, “why do you even go to school at all? What you need is this [El Sistema].
Why would you go to 4th and 5th grade or try to go to high school and get a high
school diploma? What are you going to do with that? You would just hang it on
your wall and that's it. So why do you need a diploma from elementary school or
high school, when all we need is to play our instruments?”
The first time after I heard him say these things I went home and I told my mom
that I was scared because this guy told me not to keep going to school, that I
should practice violin in the morning, not go to school.
This account provides a striking contrast with Abreu’s claim (quoted above) that “in order to get
admitted to their musical studies, the children and the juveniles have to do well in regular
school.” When the young Mazzocchi told his mother about his El Sistema peers’ and leadership’s
penchant for expressing the overzealous view of being more responsible to El Sistema than to
anything else, her reaction was to ensure that he went to school as much as possible. So,
fortunately for Mazzocchi, he did not have to sacrifice his education, though over time he risked
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
24
losing his career in El Sistema because he wanted to earn degrees both in his general and musical
education.
But El Sistema’s oppressive workload did have its benefits: every day Mazzocchi looked
forward to being with the young people with whom he had bonded emotionally throughout the
long, arduous process that was simultaneously enervating and energizing, and ultimately
musically inspiring and satisfying. Soon after Mazzocchi started El Sistema, he began to realize
that he was part of a system that allowed him to imagine exciting new levels of musical
performance that were made possible by virtue of the countless hours of hard work El Sistema
demanded. In particular, the most intensive experiences in the summer seminarios provided
glimpses of the older youth orchestras playing more complex and emotionally powerful
symphonies.
I remember the very first time I went to a seminario when I was probably nine or
ten, chaperoned by my grandmother, when I was in the Orquesta Juvenil, the Youth
Orchestra, we got to see Abreu, who was sort of like a god for all the little kids. I
do remember one night after all the rehearsals and everything, the Youth
Orchestra was rehearsing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony behind closed doors. And
I remember listening from outside the door and being able to peek through the
doors and watch those older kids and Abreu working on Beethoven’s Fifth and
thinking, “How cool is that? When will I be able to do something like that?”
When Mazzocchi recalls what it was like during the most extreme rehearsals in his younger
years, he would describe vividly the moments of joy in, and in between, the working sessions:
Going into summer, I have to say as a kid, it was very exciting, actually. Because,
you know, we all had a bond usually with most of the kids in the orchestra. And
[it] was always interesting thinking about what was going to happen in those
retreats. We were always talking about music, you know, like this passage, that
passage, we’re doing Mahler’s Fifth. And I would talk about why I love one
recording more than the other. But also in the personal level, we talked about who
was going to hook up with whom, and people love to know when someone is
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
25
having trouble with someone, are they going to fight, and things like that. So
there was a lot about personal relationships going on. And sometimes, we work all
day and then we would have a party all night. And then the next day, everything
was horrible. We get reprimanded because we didn't sleep and, you know, things
like that.
I remember also being very tired, sometimes frustrated that things might not be
working or, yeah, that it was way too much work. But for the most part, I
remember, you know, we would always try to have fun. And sometimes we got in
trouble, too, like, in between the breaks, trying to play some baseball and then
coming back to rehearsal all sweaty and too tired for rehearsal; we would get
reprimanded for that.
But after all was said and done for Mazzocchi in Venezuela, he realized he was well prepared to
make a career outside of El Sistema by the radical nature of his training regimen inside of El
Sistema. Counting his professional teaching, performing, and practicing experiences with the
Barquisimeto and Simón Bolívar professional youth orchestras—combined with his previous
youth training—Mazzocchi had accumulated approximately 30,000 hours of musical experience
by the time he was 25, including, for example, 85 performances of Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony.
All of this more than qualified him for advanced music degree programs and to pursue a
professional career in the U.S.
After leaving El Sistema and before reading Baker’s book, Mazzocchi remained faithful to
the inspiration of intensive training for his children, but always knew that the system would have
to be reformed.
Now, being older and being a parent, I always thought I wanted my kids to have
some kind of El Sistema experience the way I did, and this started long before I
thought El Sistema became world famous. My wife (who also learned music in El
Sistema youth orchestras in Venezuela) and I always talked about being very
careful to make sure that when our kids participated in El Sistema, our kids had
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
26
better support in different ways, because I was aware when I became older that
not everything was perfect in that system.
THEME 3 Interview Data Summary
Based on experience with the arduous practices of El Sistema, Mazzocchi’s description of the
extreme working conditions sheds light on the success and limitations of this orchestra training
system. To summarize Mazzocchi’s views:
• There is an unprecedented amount of time spent in orchestra rehearsals: anywhere from 22
to 72 hours a week.
• The more advanced a student is in the program, the more likely that El Sistema interferes
with school.
• Sistema commitments steer students away from attending school and pursuing other career
aspirations.
• The most extreme seminarios and touring schedules can involve working all day and part of
the night, bringing risks of stress and physical injury.
THEME 4: Much-Needed Reform—Changing the Culture of El Sistema
We were always terrified.
During all parts of the interview process, Mazzocchi describes his musical experiences in El
Sistema as a marvelous experience that was to some degree tainted by a culture characterized by
autocratic leadership, inequity, and fear. As a child, he was too naïve to think that anything was
abnormal about El Sistema, but as a young man with higher levels of responsibility and stature
with the organization, he began to notice the strictures and arbitrary policies emanating from an
authoritarian leadership, the aberrant behavior of some teachers and conductors, and a code of
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
27
silence permeating the whole enterprise. Mazzocchi feels strongly that various aspects of El
Sistema’s organizational culture can be tied to its successes, such as the way the imposition of
virtually unlimited hours of rehearsal on performers creates excellence, or tightly controlled
messaging creates a positive impression of the success of the program. He remains equally
adamant, however, that without reform, the negative sides of these traits will eventually threaten
to destroy the good will of its participants and create skepticism on the part of those who demand
more accountability and objective evaluation to accept the premises and purported outcomes of
El Sistema. Based on his experience, Mazzocchi believes that a dictatorial leader in such a highly
centralized system, one who controls all personnel and financial aspects of the institution, may
bring cohesion to the program’s message, organization, and public demonstrations, but such a
structure comes at a cost, with arbitrary or secretive decision-making processes bringing
instability, favoritism, and unaccountability into the system.
The following vignettes provide vivid examples of what Mazzocchi thinks were the flawed
social dynamics within the leadership and organizational aspects of El Sistema that resulted in
less than optimal working and learning environments among its students and teachers.
Fear, Secrecy, and Control
While his peers often joked about Abreu as “the Führer” and El Sistema leadership as “the
mafia,” a genuine element of fear permeated Mazzocchi’s youth orchestra experience due to
dealing with authoritarian leaders who could appear at any moment to contradict or reprimand
anyone at any level of the organization. Although Mazzocchi was shocked by the threat of
“excommunication” from El Sistema after fifteen years of service, upon further reflection on the
culture of the system twenty years later, he now realizes that unreasonable demands and threats
of retribution were a part of the flawed fabric of the organization.
There were different names and different expressions for it. Excommunication is
one of them that you would hear all the time as in, “Oh, he’s one of the ones that
is being excommunicated.” It was sort of funny to say it, you know? It’s like,
yeah, well, he left, he’s with the devil, or whatever. And when Geoff Baker refers
to Abreu as “El Führer,” it’s true. I heard that all the time and I actually said it
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
28
myself when I was a kid because I thought it was funny. I didn’t really know the
complete connotation of it. But yes, when Abreu walked in the room, everybody
trembled and they said, yeah, “El Führer viene mañana [the Führer is coming
tomorrow], so get ready.”
For Mazzocchi, El Sistema’s veil of secrecy is real and its power of censorship can suddenly
extend to all members and levels of the organization at any time. When asked in the interview,
“why is it that most people in El Sistema had to be anonymous when they spoke to Geoff Baker,
that whatever they said, they had to be protected by anonymity? Why would that be, if there’s
such support for Abreu and so much success in the end?,” Mazzocchi replied:
Well, let me tell you this. The more I tell people that I’m doing this interview with
you, the people in Caracas or in Venezuela, not only in Caracas, the more they
tell me to make this anonymous. They say, “Don’t give him your name, don’t give your
name.” They all tell me, “If you had any hopes of doing any musical work in Venezuela in the
future, forget about it if you give him your name.”
He goes on to explain that sadly this culture of fear and retribution for the employees, teachers,
and performers in El Sistema has become well known and expected. Mazzocchi then adamantly
asserts,
It [the culture of fear and retribution] is completely unjustified. But it was
accepted, you know what I mean? So I think all these people who would could
only speak with anonymity with Geoff Baker are afraid of that [reprisal]. That’s it,
that’s the end of their career. They’re going to be a traitor. They will never do
anything in music ever again in Venezuela.
Over-competitiveness, fear, and humiliation
A culture of secrecy and intimidation manifests itself in the program. While advocates of El
Sistema have claimed the romantic notion that the performers did not care what position in the
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
29
orchestra or other forms of social status they held, Mazzocchi considered the hierarchical
boundaries not only clearly present but also arbitrary, manipulative, and constant reminders of
the favoritism that existed throughout the system. It all started with a fear of the conductor.
Yeah, when the passage wasn't working, then the conductor would say, okay,
that's it. This is not working, let's listen to you uno por uno [one by one]. And he
would ask anybody to play in front of the whole ensemble. And everybody
trembled when he asked them to play, and of course, it was very evident to the
whole orchestra who could play, what and how. I assumed that [uno por uno] was a
technique implemented … from Caracas, from Abreu. Later on we found out
that there was always a lot of competition going on within and across the
orchestras in Venezuela.
For Mazzocchi, Baker’s book stirred up memories of the sensations of fear and anxiety that
constantly permeated orchestral practices.
Going back to the question about fear, we always had fear. I never thought about
it so objectively until I read it in the book. One of the main fears was being asked
to stand and play your part in front of the whole orchestra. That was the main
reason why we kept practicing, because you didn’t want to be put on that spot.
Not surprisingly, proponents of El Sistema have not readily admitted that the program uses fear
and humiliation as a motivating tool for getting positive results and a driving force for excellence
in ensemble training.
When the one-by-one “auditions” resulted in changes in the seating of the orchestra, it
usually brought feelings of exhilaration for the victor and degradation for the loser:
Success facing the “one by one” trials was how I advanced as a kid in the
orchestra. I remember very vividly, playing Romeo and Juliet by Tchaikovsky, and
sitting in the last stand. The young conductor asked all of the second violins to
play one by one starting with the principal. At the end of the whole thing, he said,
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
30
“okay, you,” and pointed at the girl sitting on the second chair, “you get out.” He
pointed at me, “you, on the last stand, get up and you guys are going to trade
places.” He sat me in the first stand. I guess I played better than her, but we were
all always terrified.
There was always this sense of terror with the impending presence of Abreu.
They would say Abreu is visiting our city and he’s coming to rehearsal and then
every time while we were rehearsing and the door opened, everybody stopped to
look at the door to see if it was Abreu. It was like complete fear.
Mazzocchi also repeatedly describes the politics of being in the orchestra as an imperfect
meritocracy fraught with anxiety. There was always an illusion of fairness in the competitions,
but success depended a lot on whom you knew and who your teacher was. For Mazzocchi, the
terrifying audition process that served to establish the hierarchical status of every player in the
orchestra motivated him to find other ways to attain higher levels of achievement. In his case, he
responded to the pressures in the system by taking private lessons, and by virtue of his
improvement he attracted the attention of an important Sistema instructor who would later
advocate for Mazzocchi’s ascending station within the violin section of the orchestra.
I know firsthand that the system of merit scale, merit work, or merit recognition
wasn't perfect, but I guess I was lucky in that sense. I started taking lessons, you
know, from this teacher, from that point on, which really shaped a lot of my
career, my playing and my career.
Advancement through working hard is the hallmark of meritocracy. However, Mazzocchi
describes a widespread culture of favoritism that makes “befriending,” or more pejoratively,
“kissing up” to other people, or even performing with exaggerated enthusiasm, as a prevalent
strategy for gaining ground in the system. In a working environment where seeking unfair
preferential treatment is the norm, orchestra members used the common idiomatic phrase jalar
bolas (“to pull balls”), an expression derived from the practice of prisoners attempting to gain
favor from prison leaders, to suggest that “quid pro quo”—such as doing favors for teachers or
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
31
orchestra principals—is an effective strategy for advancing their position or status in the
orchestra system.
It's part of the Venezuelan culture. Sometimes, even in school they will say, “if you really
want to get ahead in math, you are gonna have to jalar bolas the teacher a little bit,
because he likes that or she likes that.”
In El Sistema, as Baker said in his book, not only do you have to work really hard, but
maybe you have to become friends with certain people and take lessons with certain
people, and through their contact and friendship maybe move up to the next level. You
have to know how to fake once in a while. Look good, but you have to also kiss up. You
know, a lot of jalar bolas.
Of course, there are certain people that I guess from the beginning were outstanding so
they never had to jalar bolas to anybody. Yeah, but in a sense, the people that maybe did
not sign up completely with Abreu’s ideas then had to find support in some other way.
Maybe they didn’t have to jalar bolas but they had to be quiet and follow along.
Abreu’s autocratic leadership style and his culture of micromanagement, mistrust, and
retribution did not allow for anyone at any level of stature in the system to complain publicly
about anything or talk to the press.
Some of my colleagues started saying things that they thought weren't working
right in El Sistema, and that was published in a newspaper, and we were called up
by Abreu and reprimanded for that. That's something that I just remembered
now; I hadn't thought about it for years. So we were told, “you have to be careful
with interviews and with reporters; you can never tell them everything, you could
never tell them the truth, because they would twist it around.” So we were
reprimanded at that time for that, but I also understood then that media was very
important for El Sistema.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
32
Blacklisting was a typical penalty for doing something that displeased Abreu. As Mazzocchi
found out after he planned to leave El Sistema temporarily, blacklisting meant the loss of respect
and/or opportunity, even for those who had been intimately involved with the system and its
leadership for many years.
Yes, I feel I’m on the blacklist, definitely. They use that term also. I’m referring to
what just happened to me just two years ago when I spoke with my violin teacher
about people that I’ve met, violinists, in other places outside Venezuela that I
have recommended to my teacher, and he has invited them to perform and teach
in Venezuela. However, he has never invited me back to perform or teach.
Mazzocchi reports that the term “the mafia,” used to understand success in El Sistema, illustrates
the requirement not only to be able to win competitions, but also to do what you are told.
Success, therefore, depends on acknowledging and obeying the authority of El Sistema’s inner
administrative circle; power in El Sistema depends upon becoming a member of its “mafia.”
Accordingly,
It meant that if you made it into the mafia, you were doing well, you were
escalating [in the organization]. Or if as someone new [in the orchestra], you met
somebody and they would say, “be careful with that because he’s in the mafia, so
you’ve got to be nice.”
Mazzocchi also feels that El Sistema has grown out of a culture of political strife and, therefore,
he sees the contentiousness of finding one’s way to the top of the orchestra hierarchy, and the
fear of being seen as noncompliant within a system headed by a controlling leader, as holding a
mirror up to Venezuela’s society.
Although some friends tell me not to worry about that [retribution] and I don’t
think any of that would happen to me now, Venezuelan society nowadays is
extremely divided... it’s a mess. In many institutions it’s “you’re either with me or
you’re the enemy.” And that’s the way El Sistema always was.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
33
Music, money, and organizational chaos
Another manifestation of the autocracy that Mazzocchi observed was El Sistema’s ability to
manage its purse strings and control its workforce through “controlled chaos.” In El Sistema,
musicians and teachers are sometimes paid well for their services, yet they are nonetheless tightly
controlled in that they are never sure of their working or payment schedules. The program
claims that such uncertain working conditions are entirely caused by the unstable Venezuelan
economy. Whether or not this is the case, this degree of organizational chaos forces many
members of El Sistema to abandon commitments outside of the orchestra and, thereby, give up a
considerable degree of control over their lives. For a workforce of people who are passionately
committed to—and increasingly dependent on—musical performance and teaching as a means
for financial survival, chaos, whether intentional or not, may be experienced as a feeling of
harassment, manipulation or loss of control.
Mazzocchi described at great length this feeling of complete chaos that permeated the
system as he experienced it.
Usually, most of the orchestra didn't know what was to happen until it was just the time
when the orchestra had to do something about it. For example, in the orchestras, we
never knew what the repertoire was until the first rehearsal. So we never knew what we
were going to play [and] we were always sight-reading on Mondays, and almost 80% of
the week is like that. It was as if information was always controlled up to the last minute
by the leadership in Caracas.
It was not only decisions of about repertoire, but who was playing and where the
orchestra was going, or if somebody had been given a new position or whatever, it
was always kind of secret. And many times, especially in Barquisimeto and the
interior, we were told we were traveling, we were touring, and we didn’t know the
dates. It was either this month or the next month. And until the last minute, we
didn't know usually; then things didn't work out.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
34
Of course, all the orchestras, mostly in Caracas, had a few more things worked
out for touring and things like that. But there was always a lack of money for the
other cities, the smaller cities. So, yeah, information was always a privilege of few
on top. So it was hard to prepare. It was hard to know what was going on.
According to Mazzocchi, El Sistema musicians eventually internalized the feeling of always being
at someone else’s disposal as a culture of manipulation by controlled chaos, especially when on
tour.
They would add rehearsals at any time. You had to be available. Usually we
rehearsed at night and they would say, "Well, tomorrow, we have to be here at
2:00 and then do a double rehearsal." So you had to cancel everything else that
you were doing. When it was a youth orchestra, it was actually a lot more
extensive, a lot worse than that. If you had to prepare for an important concert,
not even a tour, but an important concert that would mean getting more funds
from a company or from the government, then it could [be] all day, it could last
for a weekend. Sometimes, we had to miss school without warning to prepare for
a concert, because that was the ultimate goal. It was always more important than
anything else, which is something that had parents very concerned most of the
time.
Paying the young performers substantial wages meant El Sistema became a job that would easily
lure young musicians and teachers into committing to their professional orchestra, often at the
expense of exploring other musical and educational opportunities.
We would get money. We would get stipend money, some pretty early on. And
that would help pay for instrument care and things like that. But, I mean, it was
enough for some people to not have to work anywhere else.
The stability of older musicians and their families was often upended by the exigencies and
fluctuating economy of Venezuela and, specifically, El Sistema.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
35
The problem with El Sistema—and it still happens in Venezuela—is that it
fluctuated. Sometimes you would be paid every month, sometimes you wouldn't.
A classic example in Venezuela is that in December, you get a lot of bonuses for
Christmas, and you get your salary, and your payments are almost up to date, but
then you probably wouldn't get paid in the next few months, and you knew it, so
you had to save. Probably you won't get paid in January, maybe in February. So,
in March you would start getting paid for January, things like that. And it still
happens.
I remember once in the Orchestra, I guess, things weren't going very well with the
funds for El Sistema, and we were six months behind payment. I wasn't married;
I was still living at home, but there were members of the orchestra that had
already gotten married. Some of them had kids and they wouldn't get paid for
months for all the time they were performing as Symphony Orchestra members.
While weathering the inconsistencies of their financial reward, El Sistema youth were also
reminded to keep the pledge of silence about being paid at all, lest its character as a professional
training system rather than an education program becomes apparent.
At some point while the salaries of the kids playing in my orchestra were higher
than the ones of professional teachers and engineers in Venezuela, we had to keep
it sort of quiet. I think at some point they told us, “don't talk too much about your
payments, how much you're getting paid. Don't mention it outside of our doors,
how much you’re getting paid.” It's supposed to be a program that kids do … just
for the education, but a lot people were already making a living out of it.
Furthermore, when anxiety about musical progress, inflexible working conditions, fear of
retribution for disloyalty, and the distress of financial instabilities are combined, as they were in
the case of his future wife and many others, the need to reform such oppressive policies and
practices that limit opportunity outside the narrow confines of El Sistema, Mazzocchi argues,
becomes clear.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
36
I met my wife in the Simón Bolívar Orchestra. She had been teaching and playing
in the orchestra in her town, where her salary was an important income for her
family. She always mentioned that she wanted to go to medical school or
something like that but she could not afford to stop working. When we came to
the U.S. she realized she didn’t want to be a professional musician anymore. Now
she’s a registered nurse full time because here she saw the opportunity to be
something else and believes that her experiences participating in El Sistema have
helped her be a better nurse. But she feels that in El Sistema music was the only
important thing and she could not stop to try studying something else.
So it is not true the claims of El Sistema that the system’s purpose is to create
better citizens. They want to create good orchestra musicians regardless of what
the students want. If you are a good musician you have to keep going and can’t
think of anything else. And vice versa, if you are not a good musician or you
strongly feel that you want to also pursue a different career, you are pushed off or
your chances of participation are considerably limited.
THEME 4 Interview Data Summary
Based on firsthand experience of growing up within El Sistema, and then finding corroboration
in Baker’s book, Mazzocchi describes a culture of orchestral training dominated by an autocratic
leadership that breeds a culture of fear, over-competitiveness, favoritism, and secrecy. He is thus
convinced of the need to reform the organizational culture of El Sistema in Venezuela.
For Mazzocchi, El Sistema’s success is tainted by an organizational culture characterized by:
• Fear, humiliation, over-competitiveness, and strong hierarchical constraints in the orchestral
rehearsal and performance environment
• Fear of rebuke or retribution for those perceived as disloyal to the system or who do not
accept the code of silence
• Instances of favoritism over meritocracy on the part of teachers and administrators
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
37
• Overly centralized, autocratic maneuvers that take advantage of organizational chaos to
control and manipulate its members
• Unpredictable schedules and amounts of payment to teachers and orchestra members that
create conditions of stress and financial dependence
THEME 5: Disingenuous Claims of Orchestral Training as a Model of Social
Values—Issues of Equity, Ethics, Gender, Democracy, and Human Rights
All that matters is how good it sounds… Everything else is secondary.
Theme 5 reflects Mazzocchi’s assessment of El Sistema as an orchestral training program that
functions as a model for social values in and through music. In accordance with Baker’s analysis,
Mazzocchi concludes that a tenuous connection at best exists between his experience developing
as a musician in El Sistema and evidence of a significant degree of social inclusion, social action,
social development, or social justice, beyond commonplace instances of social bonding and
socialization that naturally result from children in virtually any youth program who spend long
and intensive hours training together. In the case of El Sistema, social bonding is ensured by
extensive hours of socially interactive work rehearsing in the orchestra, having fun playing sports
together during their rehearsal breaks, and eating together and frequent parties after working all
day during their intensive seminarios.
Though El Sistema does provide free or cheap resources (such as instruction, instruments,
uniforms, music stands, food) and open enrollment at the beginning stages of its training (space
permitting), and, by definition, it keeps potentially idle youth busy with the enormous amount
time spent rehearsing music in safe, adult-supervised learning environments, for Mazzocchi, El
Sistema’s claims that the high level of musical performance is the consequence of its high
standards of social values appears to be largely disingenuous. By using the word “disingenuous,”
Mazzocchi means that the organization and culture of El Sistema has failed to exemplify an
intentional focus on social values, made manifest in all aspects of its musical and non-musical
activities. To him, El Sistema’s culture of inequity, autocracy, and fear lacks the candor, sincerity,
and integrity necessary to fully legitimize the claims of its positive social value to youth.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
38
Issues of social class and gender equality
Mazzocchi testifies that there was a relatively small representation of lower-class children, and
virtually no female students, teachers, or administrators, throughout his early El Sistema years.
Over time, a few more girls and minorities appeared in the orchestra, but usually the girls sat at
the back of the orchestra, the women had lower management desk jobs, and the system remained
largely devoid of female teachers. (Even today, as Baker has noted, the Simón Bolívar orchestra is
80% male, with hardly any women reaching the status of principal.) Thus, according to
Mazzocchi, two standard measures of social idealism—a more egalitarian, fair, and just society
for lower-class children and girls—were not consistently present at any time during his
experience in the Barquisimeto or Simón Bolívar orchestras.
Mazzocchi also notes, as Baker found in his research, that the mission of social action was
not emphasized at all in the early years, but later elevated in importance during his last years in
Caracas. Due to the sudden emphasis on social outcomes in Abreu’s speeches and other publicity
surrounding the program, members of the orchestras realized that their program had been
reframed as a form of social action designed to benefit the poorest segment of Venezuelan youth.
For Mazzocchi, the reality of his experience did not match the new rhetoric of the program, yet
the orchestra members were explicitly asked not to contradict, or even discuss, these issues with
others outside of El Sistema.
The person presenting our concert said, “This is unbelievable! This orchestra is
made up of all poor kids from the poorest neighborhoods of Venezuela. And now
they’re here on our stage performing great music. What a great achievement.”
But I knew for sure—because I knew some of those kids—that they were not from
poor neighborhoods. And as Baker mentions in the book, some of them actually
hated it being presented like that or being told by people, “Whoa, you were from
a poor neighborhood and now you're here and you're a great musician!” And …
we hated it too, but we were told not to say anything: “just smile, don’t respond.”
Because it was the same when I was a kid. We were told, “Don’t say anything.
Don’t talk about your money, your hours, anything.”
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
39
While agreeing that El Sistema had later on become more open to the participation of lower-
class children and eventually female participants, Mazzocchi views El Sistema’s claims of social
impact on disadvantaged students as unsubstantiated assertions and insincere propaganda
emanating from a secretive organization seeking more funding. He also notes that gender and
class imbalances continued in the leadership positions within the orchestra itself.
My personal experience in my orchestra [was that] it wasn’t primarily lower-class.
I saw that the core of the orchestra, the principals who sit in the first chairs [of the
orchestra], they were all from middle- to upper-class families.
Mazzocchi also noticed that the rhetoric of El Sistema intensified during and after the time he
was in Venezuela. Not only purporting to focus on issues of equal opportunity and social action
for economically deprived youth, it now claimed to “save the lives” of particularly at-risk children
and youth.
I don’t remember so much emphasis on the social aspect of it. I guess they always
said, “El Sistema keeps the kids out of the streets,” but it was mostly because of
time spent together as an orchestral training project. It just wasn’t that strongly
pushed when I was there; it was just a way of making the kids better musically and
to teach them music, but not really to help the society, to help the poor, to rescue
the lowest levels of society. !
I know there have been some cases of kids that were pulled out of gangs and
things like that, but there were really very few cases in my experience. They have
been, of course, talked about to death. I can totally see what Baker says, that
some of the kids don’t like it when they go on tours and people tell them, “you
were all poor kids from barrios [high-poverty neighborhoods] or whatever, and
now you’ve been transformed,” yet they can’t speak for themselves. And they
don’t like it; they are not comfortable with it, because they didn’t come from low-
class barrios.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
40
When Mazzocchi does describe the social impact of El Sistema, he stresses the significant
remuneration for the long hours of practice and concerts as a substantial financial and, therefore,
a significant social benefit of the program.
The people involved in El Sistema definitely have a lot more economic assets than
the people that are not. That’s what I remember. And you should know also that
… that the players in the Simón Bolívar Orchestra B get paid very handsomely to
be in the orchestra.
However, because of the population distribution of El Sistema, financial and professional status
was more often bestowed on middle- and upper-class students than on the poor.
The unresolved issues of sex, sexism, and youth vulnerability in El Sistema
People knew that stuff was happening; everybody talked about it
but nobody reported it.
When asked about the social principles of El Sistema and to what extent its members behaved as
members of an ethical society—that is, a place where moral principles applied clearly and equally
to issues of social equity and justice—Mazzocchi responded bluntly that musical excellence was
valued more than exemplary character or behavior.
From the beginning, we knew that the most important thing [in El Sistema] was
music, playing music, sounding good no matter what, and everything else was
always secondary. It wasn’t uncommon to see somebody who didn’t exhibit a lot
of morals or high ethical standards. If you were a great musician, you could be
late for rehearsals. People could know that you were having affairs with students
or any kind of things like that, but then you were forgiven, because you were
succeeding in the most important part of El Sistema.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
41
In a culture of long working hours where students and teachers enjoy close personal relationships
in the process of teaching, learning, or performing music, issues of sex, sexism, and vulnerability
of youth are of particular importance to determining the social worth of El Sistema. All leaders of
youth development organizations must not only pay constant attention to these issues, but also be
morally accountable for representing and promoting high standards of conduct in all
circumstances and at all times.
From his observations and conversations with others, Mazzocchi became aware of many
serious flaws in the culture of El Sistema’s youth orchestra system that, in retrospect, need to be
addressed in Venezuela. During the relatively secluded and sometimes under-supervised
moments between public rehearsals and performances, unhealthy personal relationships and
encounters may develop such that—with the absence of accountability and oversight—they can
become abusive. If such abuses are tolerated or covered up, they may corrupt the social fabric of
the organization.
Mazzocchi feels that El Sistema has not been entirely forthright about these serious issues,
thereby compromising its claims for positive social impact on youth. From his viewpoint, El
Sistema appears as an autocratic and secretive system in which men generally hold positions of
power over women and sexual transgressions occur. He believes that it is essential to an ethical
society that such acts are not covered up, and that there are consequences for those actions,
especially in a youth organization that allows for private instruction and long periods of time for
intimacy to develop when these youth participate in El Sistema activities away from home.
While Mazzocchi finds the reports in Baker’s book to be entirely credible, he also
recognizes the complexities that exist when passionate young people engage in powerful music
making in close contact with their peers and their teachers. It is well known that teacher-student
relationships have crossed the line into abuse in higher education. Some of these cases have
resulted in the firing of professors, but in El Sistema, however, Mazzocchi asserts that instances of
sexual abuse have been covered up by a code of silence, and there have been few or no
consequences for those who have engaged in exploitive relationships.
Let’s talk about something very touchy like sexual abuse. For example, I
remember talking to somebody from a major conservatory in the U.S and my
mentioning something about a teacher in El Sistema who was known to have
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
42
sexual relationships with students and he said, “Well, that happens a lot at
conservatories in the U.S. too.” And I asked, “But were the conservatory teachers
ever held responsible?” … “Oh yes, they were caught.” … “But what
happened?” … “Well, some were fired and some were asked to retire, others
moved.” … You see, that’s the difference. I never saw that [consequences for
sexual abuse] happening in El Sistema. People knew that stuff was happening —
like Geoff said in his book—everybody talked about it, but nobody reported it.
Furthermore, Mazzocchi has since discovered that sexual transgressions are sometimes so widely
known that they appear to be tolerated to some extent as a part of a culture of accepted sexual
permissiveness or abuse that continues to exist today.
In fact, I heard even crazier things nowadays from my friends in Venezuela that
there's a conductor that got not one, but a couple of kids, pregnant in the
orchestra and he's still there. According to my friends, he had to leave for some
time and the kids had to be taken somewhere else and somebody sort of comes
and cleans everything out. But then he's still teaching, he's still conducting, he's
still there.
There may be some embarrassment and occasional reassignment of employees by El Sistema
leaders, but known predators may still be a part of a system where young orchestra members are
vulnerable to those older and more powerful than themselves and therefore at risk of sexual
abuse.
Mazzocchi’s personal experience and conversations with friends have indicated a high
degree of complicity with the “normalcy” of male teachers having sexual relationships with
female students.
It was the norm. … Some of the guys, some of the teachers, would actually say it
out loud: “I do this [have sexual relationships] with my students because I think
we’re actually helping them become better musicians, better violinists.” So, there
was a culture of that… I had a girlfriend for many years in the orchestra, but the
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
43
fact that I wouldn’t take advantage of younger girl students under my supervision
suggested to my friends that it showed some kind of, I don't know, unmanliness,
something like that.
I would love for my kids to have some kind of El Sistema system or experience like
that. But I would really watch the program closely; I would really prepare my kids
for the possibility of abusive relationships with teachers.
When questioned about the vulnerability of homosexual students, Mazzocchi replied with his
usual candor.
In my orchestra, it was a place to ridicule guys who were suspected to be gay.
Other guys would just tease them all the time, but I now realize that they were
bullied. It was plainly not correct at all to permit this, but boys were teased all the
time and they just had to shut up and take it. And again, it happened everywhere
in El Sistema; it's just that it was never talked about by the teachers or the
administrators or people involved. Nobody was ever punished.
For Mazzocchi, instances of sexual harassment and abuse without consequences invalidate the
possibility of El Sistema’s extolment as a model for social parity, inclusiveness, or justice,
regardless of the levels of musical excellence or the resources afforded to the poor. An autocratic
and secretive leadership that does not protect its most vulnerable participants and does not
censure those who violate their rights is not a promising promoter of social action. Ultimately, it
must acknowledge and then eradicate these grievous flaws in the program. The reputation of
future Sistema-inspired programs will depend on accountability and evidence of meeting high
standards of social conduct.
Misrepresentation of El Sistema and the orchestra as models for democracy
We were always told what to play, what not to play, what to learn and that was it.
… a symphony orchestra is not a democracy.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
44
In describing El Sistema’s culture of autocratic leadership, compounded by gender bias,
favoritism, and a code of silence and cover-up in cases of abuse, Mazzocchi concluded that no
strong correspondence exists between the principles of democracy and the practices and policies
of El Sistema. Mazzocchi’s hope that the advancement of democratic principles becomes a
hallmark of Sistema-inspired programs outside of Venezuela remains steadfast. But in his
experience, the culture of El Sistema, or any other symphony orchestra in which he has played,
could never be regarded as democratic.
El Sistema felt like a society … but I don’t know how or if you can call it
democratic. And I’m not just talking about El Sistema. I mean, a symphony
orchestra is not a democracy. You have a conductor, he tells you what to do. If
you don’t agree, you might talk to the conductor and see if you can get more of
your way, but chances are the conductor does not like your way and will say, “no,
you have to play it this way.” If you don’t, then you might be asked not to play
the concert.
There’re no votes, at least for musical issues. I mean, I’ve never seen that in any
orchestra and much less in El Sistema, anybody standing up and saying, “OK,
let’s vote on this, let’s decide on this issue.” Well, maybe certain non-musical
things were decided democratically like traveling logistics, such as how many
people who like to go by bus or by car or whatever. We have the resources, what
would you like? Then maybe a vote, that’s for sure. But the orchestra, per se, on
stage, in rehearsal, there is a lot of instant interaction but it’s hardly a democracy.
Undemocratic behavior was also the norm for middle management in the violin section. The
publicity surrounding El Sistema promoted the idea that the exchange of seating positions within
the orchestra was a symbol of a more democratic orchestral culture, but Mazzocchi’s experience
does not support this conclusion.
When I was asked to join the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, there was a principal
concertmaster and a second concertmaster. Whenever the one concertmaster was
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
45
playing, I usually sat in the back of the first violin section. When the other
concertmaster was playing, I would sit nearer to the front of the orchestra. And
one time I even sat in the first stand with him. So we all switched seats, that’s true.
But it wasn’t that democratic. “Democratic” is not the word. It wasn’t just based
on giving everybody an opportunity. Sometimes it was based on, you know, how
the person setting up the seating thought of you.
For Mazzocchi, the centralized and secretive practices of El Sistema ignored the need for prior
notification of schedules, repertoire, or orchestra seating, let alone democratic processes such as
equal representation or voting. While participating on a panel about El Sistema-inspired
programs in the U.S., Mazzocchi heard one leader talk about the way democratic processes have
become a small, but characteristic, feature of his Sistema-inspired youth orchestra in the U.S.—a
model for exercising choice in repertoire that Mazzocchi never experienced in Venezuela.3
One of the panelists in the session said that in his El Sistema program they play
the music of today, not just classical repertoire, and they let the kids vote what
they wanted to play. I jumped up and said, “that’s great, that’s very democratic!”
But I don’t remember seeing that in El Sistema in Venezuela. In fact, it hardly
ever had anything to do with the programs. We were always told what to play,
what not to play, what to learn and that was it. Whatever came from above had
to be done.
Unfair distribution of resources, stipends, and teachers across El Sistema sites
Another characteristic of a democratic society, ideally speaking, is the equitable distribution of
resources across its constituencies. Without this, values of equal opportunity, fairness, and
advancement through hard work cannot flourish on a system-wide basis. According to
Mazzocchi’s experience, the unequal sharing of resources across the youth orchestra system are
evidence that El Sistema does not represent either an inclusive or a just society.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3 “The El Sistema Spectrum: Music Education and Identity,” Philadelphia, October 14th, 2015.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
46
In Barquisimeto we didn’t have good rehearsal space. We didn’t have access to so
many supplies like strings and things like that. And Caracas seemed more
accessible. We had a great hall, air conditioning, and a lot of stage hands setting
up and bringing [it] all down. And if you needed music, you would just go to the
library because everything was there. In Barquisimeto it was impossible. We had
to find it in our own library or, in a different library, or wait for it to come from
Caracas. So everything was centralized. So, I guess that’s what it meant to be in
the Simón Bolívar Orchestra. You were now in the best-treated orchestra, in the
best paid orchestra.
Over time, such inequities across the network of orchestras give credence to the
perception and reality of an undemocratic society of youth orchestras disingenuously
characterized as a paragon of democracy.
What I found out recently is that my orchestra, the guys my age, in my state,
pretty much gave up because they don’t have enough money to continue
performing. They haven’t been paid for a long time. For four months they
haven’t rehearsed and they stopped programming concerts. Even inside El
Sistema, there’s [a] big array of economic levels. You can’t trust a system that
allows kids to spend a whole month in Milan because they were invited to open a
festival and close a month-long festival. They stayed there doing nothing, on
vacation, in one of the most expensive cities in the world, while you have a
regional orchestra that has to stop working because they don’t have any money.
Mazzocchi adds that disparities of local resources and respect were endemic and proportional to
one’s distance from the centralized system emanating from Caracas.
I played solos with orchestras in other cities, and I did feel that I was treated
differently because I was coming from Caracas and the Simón Bolívar Orchestra,
even though I wasn’t born in Caracas or originally trained there. So, there’s
always a hierarchy. If you are from the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, then you are at
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
47
the top, and people should treat you with a lot more respect in the poorer interior
areas of Venezuela when you go play or teach there.
The irreconcilable strands of autocracy and democracy in El Sistema and Venezuelan politics
Reflecting on the added complications resulting from El Sistema’s dependency on government
funding in the context of Venezuela’s polarized electorate, Mazzocchi believes there is a
contradiction between El Sistema’s supposed social and democratic values and its close ties to the
ruling government, which directs suppressive actions against dissenters from other parties. He
concludes that Venezuelan politics expose the fragility of El Sistema’s existence as a cultural or
social institution, let alone a program that can somehow improve social inclusion, social rights, or
social justice.
Mazzocchi began addressing this issue by illuminating the directives from El Sistema’s
leadership as to how orchestra members should vote in elections, based solely on the likelihood of
gaining or losing funding for the program.
When I turned 18, I remember the first presidential election that I was going to
participate in; I was told for whom I should vote. I thought at the time that it was
expected, because that would assure me that my program, and perhaps myself,
would have more funds. Years later I was told to vote for the guy [Hugo R.
Chávez] who had led a coup that almost killed Carlos Andrés Pérez, went to jail,
and then came back to successfully run for president. For that election I was
already studying in the US but I went back to Venezuela to visit and vote. I visited
the orchestra and I could not believe I was being told there that we should all vote
for Chávez for the future of El Sistema. It was shocking to me especially because
we were told to vote for Pérez the previous election—Pérez had named Abreu as
the minister of culture and was the one who funded the creation of El Sistema—
and Chávez was against Pérez and everything he stood for! That told me that the
principles of El Sistema are very fragile, are very malleable, depending on where
the resources are coming from. That’s probably why there’s not a defined doctrine
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
48
[of] what El Sistema means. It’s just that we go with whoever is going to give us
money.
Although he has been out of Venezuela for twenty years, Mazzocchi knows from his
communication with friends that despite the political tensions gripping the nation, Dudamel is
considered by many to be immune from criticism of his silence with regard to oppressive
government policies, because of the good that El Sistema youth orchestra system is supposedly
doing for many children.
Back when I was in El Sistema, I felt like it was my duty to vote, perhaps, for the
person they’re telling me that I should vote. But, now that Venezuela is becoming
a totalitarian government, kids in the orchestras are prohibited from going to any
demonstrations. If they go, they could be kicked out of the orchestra. Now that
all this is becoming so volatile, that human lives are being lost just for disagreeing,
I realize that, I mean, there is a line drawn between democratic values and a non-
democratic government, but El Sistema leadership doesn’t see it that way. At
least, Dudamel doesn’t see it that way. People justify his silence because he’s
protecting the kids. But he’s not protecting the kids who get killed at any time,
even by just walking by a demonstration, not being part of it; perhaps he’s just
protecting the funds that are paying his salary and the cost of the system.
Postlude: Summary and Conclusions
Unraveling the enigma of El Sistema
This case study interview project illuminates the principles and practices of El Sistema’s youth
orchestra training from the personal perspective of someone who grew up in El Sistema, left the
program under duress, and twenty years later reexamined his experience in light of Geoff Baker’s
ethnographic research on El Sistema’s methods in Venezuela and the promise of its adaptation to
alternative settings outside of Venezuela. Because Baker’s critical investigation had no choice but
to rely on anonymous sources, Luigi Mazzocchi felt compelled to describe his experiences, which
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
49
both confirm the most contested findings of Baker’s research, but also affirm the inspiration, if
not the claims, of El Sistema’s message of the positive social impact achieved by providing
intensive orchestral training in and through music.
Themes emerging from analysis of the interview data provide a new window onto the
past and present of El Sistema. The findings show how Mazzocchi’s deep ambivalence toward
the program was at first a reaction to his banishment from the system, yet in retrospect, these
mixed feelings became clearly connected to disparities and ambiguities within the system that,
from an adult perspective, need redress. Mazzocchi does not regard Baker’s work or his own
testimony as an attack on El Sistema, but rather a call to disseminate the inspiration of El
Sistema by reforming its orchestral training practices in the direction of a more comprehensive
and progressive music education system focused strongly on its purported social value to all
youth. Without redress and reform, the disparities of purpose and practices within the system will
continue to expose the disingenuousness of the claim that it models an ideal, democratic society.
Mazzocchi leaves no doubt that he received the highest caliber of orchestral training from
his experiences in El Sistema, yet he feels strongly that this training is not sufficient to claim that
it represents a well-rounded music education. Though the methods of El Sistema did eventually
result in musical excellence for those children who could manage the demands of its
requirements for participation, Mazzocchi believes that the flaws of El Sistema’s administration,
subject to the political and financial pressures of dependence on government support, eventually
led to a troubling disregard of its purported social values by creating a culture of fear, inequity,
and authoritarian policies at odds with the joy and heightened aesthetic experience of performing
emotionally powerful symphonic works.
The analysis of the interviews suggests that Mazzocchi’s experience within El Sistema
involved a critical concoction of elements of “play and struggle” (from the organization’s motto
tocar y luchar) that have provided a stunning model of musical achievement:
• Peer music-making processes directed by master musicians
• Heightened aesthetic experiences achieved through the passionate performance of great
orchestral music
• Social-emotional bonding throughout the ambitious and arduous process of music-
making
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
50
• The self-satisfaction of having achieved all of this through the enormous group and
personal effort to rise above all manner of obstacles that stood in the way of these
accomplishments
However, this case study report confirms to a large extent the findings of Baker’s critical analysis
of El Sistema, which suggest the experience of growing up under the influence of El Sistema’s
autocratic control and extreme methods for achieving musical success may be at odds with the
system’s stated social goals of modeling the democratic values of equity, equal opportunity, and
freedom within the orchestra and across the network of núcleos. Combining their visions provides
a map for those seeking to go beyond the Venezuelan program and focus more on the idea of
providing a comprehensive and progressive music education in a safe, collaborative learning
environment that is accountable to the principles of equity and opportunity.!
Mazzocchi’s primary purpose is not to attack El Sistema for the flaws of its past or for any
future transgressions, but to imagine the ways in which Sistema-inspired programs can take El
Sistema’s overstated, idealistic messages and bring them to fruition in smaller-scale,
comprehensive music programs, guided by highly-trained and inspiring teachers who both
exemplify and transmit the highest standards of music making and social behavior, which can
lead to important social, cognitive, and aesthetic outcomes for children. The mission of creating a
truly egalitarian and empowering music program is already underway in many parts of the
world, and Venezuela’s El Sistema is no longer a singular model for pursuing the essential role of
socially-conscious music education in a 21st-century society. Realizing this dream, Mazzocchi
feels, will provide a kind of reconciliation of his “profound ambivalence” towards El Sistema and
a great hope for the Sistema-Inspired programs already proliferating outside of Venezuela.
Moreover, his recovery of his troubled recollections of experiences that confirmed the findings of
Baker’s book provides a foundation for understanding and correcting the culture of El Sistema, in
order to develop a learning organization truly consistent with democratic principles and values
and worthy of its dissemination worldwide.
* * *
Addendum: Reaffirmation of the case study report from a former Sistema Fellow at New England Conservatory
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
51
In the process of interviewing Luigi Mazzocchi, I was also able to meet with a former Sistema
Fellow who had twice visited El Sistema in Venezuela, once as a fellow and once as a scholar in
the midst of a dissertation on the topic of potential social impact outcomes that can be attributed
to El Sistema.4 The fellow’s first visit was a month-long tour consisting of short-term observations
of a variety of núcleos; the second trip consisted of longer-term teaching engagements at two
núcleos. These visits were meant to provide additional professional learning experiences for the
purpose of “shaping a career” to promote international music education projects with a similar
focus on their social mission through music.
After the Fellow returned from the second El Sistema visit having read Baker’s
ethnographic research, I took notes from a conversation focused on the question: “To what
extent has your impression of the El Sistema in Venezuela changed after visiting the program as
a fellow?”
While still in the process of analyzing the case study interview transcripts, I sought to
compare the perceptions offered by the former Sistema Fellow with Mazzocchi’s views about El
Sistema in Venezuela.
After the second time around I understood the reality of El Sistema with less
“rose-colored glasses,” less “fanfare and glitter,” and a different, clearer reality
emerged. Spending 10 days with sets of kids as their teacher, and not hopping
from one site to another as I did before, triggered wholly different impressions of
El Sistema’s orchestral training practices:
• Teaching methodology is limited: antiquated rote teaching techniques are still
commonly used. The style of education remains fixed, without much innovative
flexibility: extensive drill and practice, but they have the time to do it.
• The size of the ensemble seems too big: Still very large numbers of people working
together, limiting attention to individual student learning
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 The Abreu Fellows at New England Conservatory were renamed Sistema Fellows. This individual requested
anonymity.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
52
• Citizenship develops primarily from the necessity to work together in large ensembles
for long periods of time
• Extreme hours of rehearsal—all day every day—are still the norm; however, the
students who used to have no breaks, now have more breaks
• It seems the young benefit more being ‘mentored up’ from being in El Sistema than
the older students, giving the impression that the style of administration and teaching
is less suitable for musically or socially advanced kids
• Ensemble playing improves, but individual technical playing does not necessarily
correlate, and the system is not producing soloists. While seemingly consistent with
the priority of ensemble learning, results indicate that these practices are not
furthering solo musical proficiency for the average student who has limited access to
other forms of musical education.
• Occasions for reflection and creativity only occur in private lessons, thus calling into
question the value of spending a majority of time in ensemble learning and suggesting
that ensemble is a more expedient, but not necessarily more beneficial, way of
learning.
• Although the teaching methods remained static, the kids progressed greatly after only
one year.
• Expertise emerges only in the context of ensemble performance, which remains the
only circumstance for demonstrating musical progress.
• By virtue of the size of the ensembles, El Sistema orchestras function as what the
fellow described as “a natural filtering system of more ‘musically inclined’ students
who surface organically through the mechanical rote system.” And because of the
extended periods of time spent in ensemble rehearsals, “talented” students are easily
identified by El Sistema, who are selected for their “showhorse” ensembles: the
National Children’s Orchestra, Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra, and ultimately, the
Simón Bolívar Orchestra.
Thus the evolving story of the origins, the inspirations, and the alternative approaches to El
Sistema, informed by examination and research, continues.
!
Lawrence Scripp, The Need to Testify (Update Jan. 11, 2016)
53
