Sistema Scotland: a critical inquiry into the implementation of the El Sistema model in Raploch.

Abstract

<p> In the mid-1970s a group of young Venezuelan musicians, led by the economist, politician and musician José Antonio Abreu, started a youth symphony orchestra that became the social initiative broadly known nowadays as El Sistema. By offering free classical music education to deprived communities, the initiative aimed at rescuing millions of Venezuelans from poverty. Since then, El Sistema has not only grown into a solid institution in its home country but has continued to expand to other parts of the globe. In 2008, the Venezuelan program was launched in Raploch, a community in Central Scotland with a long history of deprivation. Named Big Noise and under the supervision of the charity Sistema Scotland, the initiative seeks to positively change the life of the residents of Raploch. This work offers a critique of the El Sistema movement and its implementation in the community of Raploch by analyzing contemporary subjectivities emerged from the current cultural dynamic in the institutional discourse of both initiatives.</p>