Ritornello: El Sistema, Music Education, and a Centuries-Long Narrative of Socio-Musical Activism

Autor/in	Fairbanks, Stephen
Titel	Ritornello: El Sistema, Music Education, and a Centuries-Long Narrative of Socio-Musical Activism
Quelle	In: Music Education Research, 24 (2022) 1, S.18-30 (13 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1461-3808
DOI	10.1080/14613808.2021.2014432
Schlagwörter	Music Education; Activism; Social Change; Foreign Countries; Musicians; History; Venezuela; Italy; United Kingdom (England); United States + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Musikerziehung; Aktivismus; Politischer Protest; Sozialer Wandel; Ausland; Musiker; Geschichte; Geschichtsdarstellung; Italien; USA
Abstract	Between 2007 and 2017, El Sistema -- Venezuela's national system of youth orchestras -- enjoyed a seemingly unexplainable meteoric rise, followed by an equally spectacular sunset. Although it would be easy to dismiss this Sistema decade as being no more than a peculiar aberration of music education history, I assert that El Sistema more accurately represents a poignant return -- or ritornello -- to one of the recurring rationales for music education, namely social activism. By situating this brief but notable decade of Sistema enthusiasm amidst a wider historical context of Venetian Ospedali, British Brass Bands, and American Settlement Music Houses, I highlight and critique the use of social activism as a rationale for music education. Ultimately, I argue that the societal importance claimed by El Sistema and derivative music education initiatives is not tenable, especially in consideration of the unremarkable legacies of similar socio-musical endeavours. I also argue that a stronger socio-musical lens would be advantageous for the field of music education to adopt. Thus, in addition to establishing a centuries-long pattern of socio-musical ritornellos, the purpose of this paper is to use a rise-and-fall dialectic to further explore the complexity of music education and its capacity for directly addressing society's inequities. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01