Today was a wondrously musical day: the morning was spent with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra rehearsing the Rite of Spring (I thought it was about all the parts of spring coming alive - the daffodils, the trees blooming, the birds, all in one harmony - but no, it turns out it was 'a pagan sacrifice.' I've never been good at figuring out what musical linguistics were actually saying...Like the time I thought one bit of the carnival of the animals was a hippo, and it turned out to be swan...), and the evening was with the London Symphony Orchestra playing the entire Fellowship of the Ring score with the movie playing in the background. It was brilliant. Beautiful. Grand.
But back to the Bolivar. The Youth Orchestra that we saw takes the best of the best from El Sistema - a Venezuelan organization that takes impoverished children or those from underprivileged backgrounds and trains them in the ways of music. There are hundreds of youth orchestras operating under this system, and it has apparently had a profound effect on the Venezuelan youth. The conductor of this group (Gustavo Dudamel) was equally brilliant and funny (it was a rehearsal, so he would stop every now and again to explain to the crown why this piece of music was so powerfully rich). You could tell the violinists and all the others loved him and we're honored to be there. It even gave me fond memories (which is hard to do) of my high school band days. ha! Here's the conductor:
So having in mind what this orchestra has accomplished and having watched "Blood Diamond" last night, seeing Gandalf say (with an orchestra under his chin) "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us," the last 26 hours have repeatedly reminded me to stop what I'm doing and change the world. We should take comfort in the fact that we live in a world that can be changed, and has been by individuals all along.
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