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.

摘要

2007 年至 2017 年间，委内瑞拉国家青年管弦乐团体系 El Sistema 经历了看似无法解释的飞速崛起，随后是同样壮观的日落。尽管很容易将这个 Sistema 十年视为音乐教育历史上的一个特殊偏差，但我断言 El Sistema 更准确地代表了对音乐教育的反复出现的理由之一，即社会行动主义。通过将这短暂但值得注意的十年 Sistema 热情置于威尼斯 Ospedali、英国铜管乐队和美国定居点音乐屋的更广泛历史背景中，我强调并批评了将社会激进主义用作音乐教育的基本原理。最终，我认为 El Sistema 和衍生音乐教育倡议所声称的社会重要性是站不住脚的，特别是考虑到类似的社会音乐活动的不起眼的遗产。我还认为，更强大的社会音乐视角将有利于音乐教育领域采用。因此，除了建立一个长达数百年的社会音乐 ritornellos 模式外，本文的目的是使用兴衰辩证法来进一步探索音乐教育的复杂性及其直接解决社会不平等的能力。