DENVER — At El Sistema Colorado Music Center, nine students from Inner City School danced to “Pop Goes to the Weasel.” They played on violins; they wiggled and sang along to This Jazz Man, a catchy tribute to jazz music. This day was a special one for these budding musicians — for the first time they were able to hold and play real violins after weeks of practice on papier-mâché versions.
This music center is part of a global movement of El Sistema programs that, according to Whitney Luther, the executive director of the Colorado branch, was started in Venezuela in the 1970s by orchestra conductor, musician and activist José Abreu.
“The ideology is that music transforms a youth into a being a productive, healthy, thriving member of society through all of the skills that music teaches. And that’s what we founded the organization on,” Luther said.
El Sistema Colorado
Luther believes that music is an experience for students have throughout their whole body and captures their brain in a way no other activity does.
“It provides an opportunity for them to experience the world in a very intimate way in the sense that they’re having an opportunity to speak what’s in their soul but also connect with other people within their community or within their own ensemble,” Luther said.
The center is an intensive after-school and early childhood music program that serves youth with free music education teaching violin, viola, cello and bass. The after-school program serves students across the Denver area, including some kids who come from places like Aurora and Westminster as well. If a family can get to the center, Luther said, they are more than welcome to come study music for free.
Luther also told Rocky Mountain PBS El Sistema Colorado’s early childhood program started two years ago and offers once week classes for local preschools within the area with three partner schools.
“The early childhood program is a lot of times for our students the first experience they have to engage with music — especially symphonic music,” Luther said.
The program helps kids start learning the skills necessary to graduate to a real instrument and play in a real ensemble down the road. They learn things like fine motor skills to move the left hand, play with the bow and move to the beat.
Luther explained that when El Sistema first started in Venezuela, the youngest kids would often start with paper instruments because they couldn’t afford real instruments, or they were just starting to learn the skills to handle an instrument. Now, El Sistema programs all over the world have maintained the tradition of starting students on papier-mâché instruments. And when the kids have practiced long enough with the paper instruments, El Sistema Colorado has the real things ready.
“We have a fantastically generous community that often donates instruments,” Luther said.
The class' teacher from Inner City School helps show a student how to hold the violin.
Jamie Wolf began teaching at El Sistema Colorado by directing the student choirs after school. At one point, she was also a program director for the center managing the teaching artists in their programs at partner schools. Now, Wolf teaches preschool students in the center’s early childhood music classes on Thursday mornings.
Wolf believes that kids around three and four years old are at the perfect age to start learning music, since that's when they can really grasp things like fine motor skills and auditory processing.
“Music is such a joyful way to work on that with kids. In our classes, we’re exploring rhythm and singing and instruments and sort of different genres of music,” Wolf said.
Hopefully, Wolf said, the classes help the kids find a love of music early on and sets them up with foundational skills that they can take in any direction when they’re older.
“These kiddos that I get to work with every Thursday are so fun. I mean, they come in every day through the hallway, dancing down the halls,” Wolf said. “I don't have to do much to get them excited about music because they already are."
Theresa Ho is the RMPBS Kids digital content producer. You can reach her at theresaho@rmpbs.org.
Brian Willie is the content production manager at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can contact him at brianwillie@rmpbs.org.
