Rethinking Social Action through Music

Geoffrey Baker

Description

How can we better understand the past, present and future of Social Action through Music (SATM)?



This ground-breaking book examines the development of the Red de Escuelas de Música de Medellín (the Network of Music Schools of Medellín), a network of 27 schools founded in Colombia’s second city in 1996 as a response to its reputation as the most dangerous city on Earth. Inspired by El Sistema, the foundational Venezuelan music education program, the Red is nonetheless markedly different: its history is one of multiple reinventions and a continual search to improve its educational offering and better realise its social goals. Its internal reflections and attempts at transformation shed valuable light on the past, present, and future of SATM.



Based on a year of intensive fieldwork in Colombia and written by Geoffrey Baker, the author of El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth (2014), this important volume offers fresh insights on SATM and its evolution both in scholarship and in practice. It will be of interest to a very varied readership: employees and leaders of SATM programs; music educators; funders and policy-makers; and students and scholars of SATM, music education, ethnomusicology, and other related fields.

 

Informations

• Publié par: Open Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 12 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781800641297
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 Mo

Extrait

RETHINKING SOCIAL ACTION THROUGH MUSIC

Rethinking Social Action through Music
The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools
Geoffrey Baker





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© 2021 Geoffrey Baker




This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Geoffrey Baker, Rethinking Social Action through Music: The Search for Coexistence and Citizenship in Medellín’s Music Schools . Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2021, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0243
In order to access detailed and updated information on the license please visit https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0243#copyright
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ISBN Paperback: 9781800641266
ISBN Hardback: 9781800641273
ISBN Digital (PDF): 9781800641280
ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 9781800641297
ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 9781800641303
ISBN XML: 9781800641310
DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0243
Cover image: Medellin, Colombia. Photo by Kobby Mendez on Unsplash at https://unsplash.com/photos/emtQBNCrU3Q . Cover design by Anna Gatti.

The dominant systems of education are based on three principles—or assumptions at least—that are exactly opposite to how human lives are actually lived. […] First, they promote standardization and a narrow view of intelligence when human talents are diverse and personal. Second, they promote compliance when cultural progress and achievement depend on the cultivation of imagination and creativity. Third, they are linear and rigid when the course of each human life, including yours, is organic and largely unpredictable. As the rate of change continues to accelerate, building new forms of education on these alternative principles is not a romantic whimsy: it’s essential to personal fulfillment and to the sustainability of the world we are now creating.
Sir Ken Robinson
—Pero una cosa es creer en la música como un oficio, y otra prometer que salvaremos a un país o a la humanidad con ella —contestó Sánchez.
Pablo Montoya, La escuela de música

For Miranda

Table of Contents
List of Acronyms
xi
Acknowledgements
xiii
Introduction
1
PART I
1.
Creating, Redirecting, and Reforming the Red
39
2.
The Red Pushes Back: Tensions, Debates, and Resistance
99
3.
The Red through a Social Lens
153
4.
The New Image of Medellín to the World
209
PART II
5.
Change
265
6.
Challenges
315
7.
Possibilities of Transformation
351
Afterword
383
Bibliography
411
List of Figures
443
Index
447

List of Acronyms
ACI
Agency for Cooperation and Investment
ASA
Art as Social Action
BIPOC
Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour
BLM
Black Lives Matter
CLCS
Conservatory Lab Charter School
CM
Community Music
ESI
El Sistema-inspired
IDB
Inter-American Development Bank
ISME
International Society for Music Education
LAO
League of American Orchestras
MVLM
Medellín Vive La Música
NEOJIBA
Núcleos Estaduais de Orquestras Juvenis e Infantis da Bahia
OG
Orquestra Geração
PBL
Project-Based Learning
SATM
Social Action Through Music
SBYO
Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra
SIG
Special Interest Group
SIMM
Social Impact of Making Music
SJME
Social Justice in Music Education
TED
Technology, Entertainment, Design
Geoffrey Baker is Professor of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Director of Research at the music charity Agrigento. He is the author of three previous books and numerous essays and documentary films on music in Latin America. For his blog and further information, please visit https://geoffbakermusic.co.uk .

Acknowledgments
A book such as this, founded on fieldwork, is a collective construction. So much of it is based on conversations and interviews, reading and listening to others’ ideas, and watching others at work, that the employees and students of the Red (the Network of Music Schools of Medellín) are really co-creators. I am extremely grateful to all of them for their warmth, openness, and patience. I particularly thank everyone who agreed to be interviewed or who conversed with me at greater length. The list would be too long to name everyone, but in the process of writing this book I have relistened to every interview and reread every field note, so nothing and no one has been forgotten. While it is inevitable that my perspective will not reflect the views of everyone in such a large organization and will contradict the opinions of some, I learnt from every encounter, conversation, and observation, and I applaud all those who have played a part in the Red’s search for coexistence and citizenship through music education.
I am indebted to the general directors who opened the doors of the Red to me and kept them open at different times over a period of eight years: Marta Eugenia Arango, Ana Cecilia Restrepo, Juan Fernando Giraldo, and Vania Abello. I was also fortunate to receive the support of Mábel Herrera at the Ministry of Civic Culture. I am hugely grateful to Aníbal Parra and Luis Fernando Franco, who were vital pieces of the puzzle and left a significant mark on this book. Their professional and personal support was invaluable.
A number of people with expertise in Social Action Through Music or closely related fields agreed to read and comment on my draft manuscript. My warmest thanks to them for undertaking such a major task. In alphabetical order: Dr Christine D’Alexander, Northern Illinois University, Co-Chair of the ISME Music Education for Social Change SIG, Teaching Artist and Program Director at YOLA (2011–17); Dr Anna Bull, Portsmouth University, author of Class, Control, and Classical Music (OUP, 2019); Dr Louise Godwin, musician, researcher, and arts manager, formerly with an El Sistema-inspired program in Australia; Dr Graça Mota, Porto Polytechnic, former chair of the ISME El Sistema SIG; Dr Ludim Pedroza, Texas State University, Venezuelan author of academic articles on El Sistema; Dr Andrea Rodríguez, researcher and National Psychosocial Lead at the Colombian program Batuta; and Professor John Sloboda, OBE, FBA, Guildhall School of Music & Drama, President of SIMM (Social Impact of Making Music). Additionally, Ana Cecelia Restrepo (former general director of the Red) read and responded to Chapters 1 and 2. I am very grateful to all of these readers for their time, effort, and comments. Nevertheless, any errors, misunderstandings, and flaws are entirely my responsibility.
There are many others—musicians, scholars, and educators from around the world—who have played a less direct but no less important role in my research over the last decade: sharing their ideas and experiences; inviting me to share my own perspectives in a variety of academic and non-academic spaces; and, above all, offering moral support, giving me vital sustenance to continue with the fascinating but not always popular work of thinking critically about Social Action Through Music. I cannot name everyone here, but they know who they are and I gratefully recognize and remember their input. Nevertheless, I would like to make special mention of Lukas Pairon, John Sloboda, and many others at SIMM (both board members and event participants) for creating an invaluable space for critical thinking about the social impact of making music in recent years. I must also recognize the numerous Venezuelan musicians who have supported me, whether behind the scenes or, like Gabriela Montero, Gustavo Medina, and Luigi Mazzocchi, in public. I know both the value and the potential cost of such support.
A special note of thanks to Louise Godwin for many stimulating conversations about music and social action, for continually drawing important ideas to my attention, and for putting up with a year of “once the book is out of the way…”; Natalia Puerta, who made some important introductions in Medellín; and D., whose direct help with the fieldwork was invaluable and whose indirect help with this book has been immeasurable.
I gratefully acknowledge support from the Arts and Humani