Word: venezuela
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...loooot of fun!' Miss Universe DAYANA MENDOZA, of Venezuela, after visiting Guantánamo Bay and pronouncing the U.S. detention center a "relaxing, calm, beautiful place...
...right. In 1975 he and those teens and even preteens formed the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra. It not only became a path out of the ranchos, it engendered a network of more than 100 similar youth orchestras around Venezuela that has come to be known simply as El Sistema (The System). It has served some half a million kids since the 1970s and is undoubtedly one of the most successful music-education projects of its kind in the world, emulated today as far away as Scotland. It has also produced its own international superstar: conductor Gustavo Dudamel...
...that means promoting people's talents everywhere, not just the élite." It's gratifying, he adds, to watch his students' families, who are often as attuned to the value of the Sistema orchestras as any U.S. parent sending a child to Juilliard would be, buck the reputation of Venezuela's poor as uncultured niches, or uncouth people. "They're enchanted to see their children practicing this music at home, to see the self-esteem it gives them," he says. "They share it with their neighbors...
...thinks sharing the Simon Bolivar with the U.S. can improve Caracas-Washington relations, which are at their lowest point these days. (Neither country currently has an ambassador in the other.) But he does believe that the orchestra "can't help but promote understanding, not just between the U.S. and Venezuela but the New World and Europe," where the Simon Bolivar will travel next week. Even if these kids can't change the political understanding between the U.S. and Chávez - and who would want to saddle them with such a thankless task? - it's more than enough that they...
Read more TIME stories about Venezuela...