In the film “Amadeus,” Italian composer Antonio Salieri describes how he could hear an oboe play a single, sustained note above an underpinning of bassoons and basset horns as he read the score for a Mozart serenade. After the note hovered for a few moments, Salieri says, a clarinet took it over and sweetened it into a melodic phrase “of such delight.”
The birth of El Sistema, a nonprofit music education program founded in a culturally starved Venezuela in 1975, could be likened to the unassuming note the oboe plays at the onset of Mozart’s composition. Then, like the more intricate melody the clarinet ushers in, the program became a force for social change in the country, which in a generation went from one orchestra to sending musicians to tour the world.
The program also has made its way around the world. One can even hear music that is part of its 50-year legacy at New City Fellowship East Lake in Chattanooga, where elementary school to high school students are members of a bouncy ensemble known as the East Lake Expression Engine.
Libby O’Neil, executive director of ELEE, co-founded the program in 2014 with Michael Kendall, who at the time was serving as the worship director at New City Fellowship, and Evelyn Petcher Brandes, a music teacher based in New York City. The three friends met while studying music at Covenant College and shared a vision to start a Christian music education program that served the inner city in Chattanooga.
O’Neil first encountered El Sistema, which translates to “The System,” when she learned that the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Gustavo Dudamel, emerged from a Venezuelan program that followed its tenets. She says the notion of using music education as a tool for improving lives appealed to her.
“Poverty impacts not just a person’s economic well-being but also their social and emotional well-being. I saw music education as a way to combat those outcomes.”
The products of poverty are familiar to the students of ELEE, many of which come from nearby East Lake Elementary School – as well as impoverished circumstances. Occasionally, someone who’s contending with difficulties at home or issues related to their mental health will also join the ensemble.
Over time, every student learns that ELEE – which is free for students – is a place where they can receive encouragement and support, O’Neil says.
As part of this journey, the youth learn musical and ensemble skills through choir, Bucket Band and the study of orchestral instruments. While the program is staffed with paid music educators in each of these disciplines, the heart of the El Sistema model lies in its peer-based approach to teaching.
“When a 5-year-old chooses an instrument and begins to learn how to play it, the other students will help them acclimate to it,” O’Neil explains. “If someone is learning how to play the violin, for example, another student will help them with their bow hold and then ask them to show what they learned to another kid.”
This peer-based approach to teaching helps students understand that what they learn is not just for them but rather is for everyone in the ensemble, O’Neil says. It also helps children to realize they have something valuable to offer, she adds. In essence, ELEE uses the choir and orchestra as models for teaching its students about community.
The sense of kinship that students develop manifests in ways that never fail to make O’Neil smile, she says.
“We often see kids take pride in being a trumpeter, for example. Their identity as trumpeters brings them together as a group, regardless of the age, gender or racial differences between them.”
O’Neil says she thought of her trumpeters because of the unfettered enthusiasm of ELLE’s present ensemble of horn blowers.
“I love watching them perform because some of them are quite small. The youngest is 7 or 8, so the audience doesn’t expect them to be good. When they line up and sound professional, people are surprised. Our trumpet students in particular have a lot of pride in their performance.”
ELEE schools more than trumpeters. The three storage closets New City Fellowship bequeathed to the program contain a large variety of instruments, including keyboards, drums, violins, violas, trumpets, trombones, clarinets, saxophones, woodwinds and a cello – for starters.
“We also have a French horn and a tuba, but we don’t have teachers for those,” O’Neil says. “Then there are the ukuleles, the bass guitars and all kinds of other guitars. Really, we have so many guitars.”
ELEE purchased a small number of instruments in 2014, when its schedule consisted of two one-hour classes each week. The collection grew after the local YMCA hosted an instrument drive and has since exploded as members of the community donate used instruments.
There are plenty of eager hands ready to grasp these implements and begin making music. ELEE has about 70 students on its roll, O’Neil says, about 45 of which can be found at New City Fellowship any given weekday.
Each of these students are at one of four levels of instruction based on their age. These include Loquitos, which means “crazy little ones,” Classicos, which O’Neil insists is made-up despite also being the name of a brand of pasta sauce, Antiguas for middle schoolers, and interns. Each level comes with an increase in responsibility, O’Neil notes.
“When they become a Classicos, their responsibility for caring for their instrument and the way they include younger students goes up. By the time they’re 14, they’re eligible to be a paid intern.”
When ELEE students graduate from high school, they graduate from the program. O’Neil says the goal is not to turn them into professional musicians by that time but good citizens.
“We’re not training virtuosos; we’re training cheerful generalists.”
To this end, ELEE even has an ensemble for children who might not be musically inclined – the Bucket Band. Taught by Kofi Mawuko, a Ghanaian drummer and singer who lives nearby, the crude tools of this plucky group include drumsticks and five-gallon plastic buckets.
“Bucket Band is very popular, especially with our youngest students,” O’Neil laughs. “They learn by rote, so our students don’t struggle with rhythm the way a lot of musicians do as they’re learning to read music.”
All of that said, O’Neil says she would not be surprised if ELEE produces another Gustavo Dudamel, given the quality of its teachers and the instruction they provide. If there are any future Kendrick Lamars or Yo-Yo Mas on the roll at ELEE, O’Neil suggests one of the guest teachers might provide the spark of inspiration that will place them on a more rigorous path.
Recent visiting instructors include Carmen Elisa Cancél, a Puerto Rican opera singer from New York City, and Randy Mason, a rapper from the Bronx. Cancél worked with ELLE’s choir, while Mason led sessions on collaborative song writing.
Funding for guest teachers as well as ELEE’s staff comes from various sources, including the Tennessee Arts Commission, the local chapter of the United Way, four area churches and numerous individual donors and businesses.
However, not all of the help ELEE receives is legal tender, O’Neil smiles.
“Home Depot and Lowe’s used to donate the buckets the Bucket Band uses, and we’d split them in half about every six months. Then M&M Industries (a Chattanooga-based container manufacturer) saw one of our videos and offered to make buckets designed to be instruments for us. So, we have our own buckets with our own branding. And we haven’t split one yet.
“Access to music education is often based on wealth. You have to have money for the instrument and the lessons and the transportation and the concert attire. It’s a long list and a significant barrier. But people in Chattanooga believe in us, and it’s cool to see them removing that barrier. They care enough to walk with our students and help them to become whoever they are.”