19 November 2012

How Music Can Save Young People


Thursday 22 November is the feast of St Cecilia, patron of musicians. The video above is a BBC Scotland production made in 2008. It was only last year or earlier this year that I first heard of Gustavo Dudamel or of El Sistema, 'The System', a product of the vision of Dr José Antonio Abreu. Both men are from Venezuela.

The programme has since been introduced to other countries such as Scotland and the Republic of Korea.


On 16 April 2007 Gustavo Dudamel conducted the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR in a concert at the Vatican in honour of Pope Benedict XVI whose 80th birthday it was. Dudamel was only 26 at the time, an extraordinary young age for an internationally recognised conductor.