In January this year, I had an article published about Sistema in the UK, one of a collection of articles focused on critical perspectives on El Sistema. My article discussed the issues with using classical music, a cultural form which is both played and listened to almost exclusively by the middle classes in the UK, as a social action programme for children in working class areas. I argued that classical music’s pedagogies and practices form a close fit with middle-class norms and values, as displayed historically and today. I concluded that the aesthetic of classical music needs to change in order for it to become more inclusive, and that using it as a tool for social action for children in schools in working-class areas risks repeating ideas from the Victorian era of using classical music (and other forms of high art) as a tool to ‘civilise’ the working class.
In February, I met the director of Sistema Norwich, Marcus Patteson, in the course of my research for my current project into the BBC Get Creative campaign. He had read my article and invited me to visit Sistema Norwich, as he wanted me to see how they were doing things differently to mainstream classical music education. I was very pleased to take him up on his invitation and to have the chance to talk further with him about his work. On my visit I also met Steve Copley, who had been until recently the music director of Sistema Norwich. The three of us had a long conversation about their project before I went to visit one of the after-school programmes. I was particularly interested that Steve himself was almost entirely self-taught as a musician. He has now moved on from Sistema and runs Laboratory Music Media, a music education organisation that runs workshops and trains teachers in using new forms of music technology for improvisation and composition. He showed me a couple of video clips of sessions with young people using iPads as musical instruments, which looked really exciting and innovative, and he stressed the possibilities involved in teaching music using iPad technology, as it allows users to be musically expressive without having to first develop any technical ability. Continue reading “A visit to Sistema Norwich”
Dr Anna Bull 