Sweet music from the barrio

SAN SEBASTIAN DE LOS REYES, Venezuela - A violin case slung over her shoulder, 10-year-old Daniela Fagundez trudges home along a row of muddy yards where chickens scratch among banana trees and laundry hangs drying on wire fences.

She's an unlikely classical musician, the daughter of a construction worker who dropped out of high school and a mother who has cleaned houses to help the family get by. But Daniela has found a new world in music, and her eyes light up as she talks about the violin she was given through a unique program that has changed her life.

"This is the most beautiful gift I've ever had," she says proudly. "In the future, I'd really like to conduct the orchestra."

She is a participant in one of the most widely praised teaching systems in classical music today, a nationwide network of orchestras that has made Venezuela a powerhouse for producing talented musicians. It is known as

El Sistema

- the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela - and it's becoming a model internationally for getting children excited about classical music.

Daniela's orchestra of 6-to-12-year-olds spends afternoons rehearsing Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 and Merle J. Isaac's

Gypsy

Overture in the shade of a mango tree. Many students come from humble families who otherwise couldn't afford instruments or formal training.

The System began in 1975 and has been financed by successive governments since then. It was born as the dream of a visionary economist, musician and former congressman, Jose Antonio Abreu, who was driven by a conviction that all children should have access to a quality musical education.

Today there are some 150 youth orchestras and 70 children's orchestras in Venezuela. The System involves more than 250,000 pupils, extraordinary for a country of about 27 million people.

Its star graduate, charismatic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, has risen to fame performing in concert halls from New York to Berlin. Dudamel, 27, who sometimes leaps into the air while conducting, takes over as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in September 2009.

"

El Sistema

has given me everything. It gave me the possibility of having a path in life with music," Dudamel said during a recording session. Motioning to his Youth Symphony Orchestra, he added: "Every one of those guys is

El Sistema,

and they've been transformed by music."

He and the orchestra received long, thunderous ovations in November in two sold-out concerts at New York's Carnegie Hall. Clive Gillinson, Carnegie's executive director, said the performers exuded "the sheer joy of music," at times dancing with their instruments.

This musical revolution began with 11 young musicians under Abreu's tutelage. Rehearsals were first held in a classroom, a parking garage, and loaned space in other buildings. "It grew very quickly. Already that first year we were able to have an orchestra with 100 kids," Abreu recalled.

The teaching philosophy is straightforward. All are welcome, children as young as 3 begin with singing, xylophone playing and other exercises. An instrument is chosen according to each child's inclination and abilities, provided free for the majority who otherwise couldn't afford one.

The students learn largely by practice while theory is introduced along the way. Many of their teachers were trained in the same system, forming a regenerating bottom-up cycle as knowledge is passed along. By age 10, some standout students are already helping to coach their peers.

There are similarities with the Suzuki method, created by the late Shinichi Suzuki, which emphasizes getting a child to enjoy music by hearing it in a family atmosphere and playing it as early as possible.

But teachers here say their intensive program has its own characteristics and emphasizes collective advancement. Love of music and hard work are guiding principles, encapsulated in a slogan

Tocar y Luchar,

or Play and Struggle.

Not all students are expected to become professional musicians. Abreu sees the program as "an oasis" that changes lives by giving children an outlet away from the barrios and keeping them out of trouble. He calls it building "spiritual richness." Teachers say that many students go on to successful nonmusical careers as doctors and other professionals.

Even Venezuela's prisons have similar orchestras set up in hopes that music will aid their rehabilitation.

"Classical music has a power, a power to change human beings," Dudamel said. "And that's exportable to the entire world."