Overview
El Sistema is a nationwide, state-funded music education program in Venezuela. Founded in 1975 by economist and musician José Antonio Abreu, the institution has weathered seven jolting changes in government. Hugo Chávez and, after his death, president Nicolás Maduro enthusiastically included the institution into the political agenda of the socialist project and captured the affective power of music for their own aims. Fueled by the oil boom in the 2000s, El Sistema grew over the years to encompass 1,210 orchestras for children and young people in Venezuela, reached almost 1 million people out of the 30 million in the country, and served as a model in more than 35 countries around the world. Sonorous Worlds is an ethnography of the young Venezuelan musicians who participate in El Sistema, many of whom live in urban barrios and face everyday gang violence, state repression, social exclusion, and forced migration in response to sociopolitical crisis. This book looks at how these young people engage with what the author calls “enchantment,” that is, how through musical practices they create worlds that escape, rupture, and critique dominant structures of power. Stainova’s focus on artistic practice and enchantment allows her to theorize the successes and failures of political projects through the lens of everyday transformations in people’s lives.
Full Product Details
Author: Yana Stainova
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press
Imprint: The University of Michigan Press
Weight: 0.472kg
ISBN: 9780472132737
ISBN 10: 0472132733
Pages: 280
Publication Date: 14 October 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
"Winner: CASCA (Canadian Anthropological Society) 2022 Labrecque-Lee Book Prize-- ""CASCA Labrecque-Lee Book Prize"" Co-Winner: Society for Humanistic Anthropology (SHA) 2022 Edie Turner First Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing-- ""SHA Edie Turner First Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing"" Winner: Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology (SLACA) 2021 Book Prize-- ""SLACA Book Prize"" ""Overall, Sonorous Worlds offers a rich and moving account of students operating within one of the world's most renowned and polarising classical music programmes operating in a political context that is no less polarising. Stainova compellingly demonstrates the successes and failings of the organisation by focusing on the everyday transformation that occurs within young musicians' lives."" --LSE Review of Books-- ""LSE Review of Books"" ""Stainova's book is an engaging combination of theoretical insight and observations from fieldwork and interviews with Sistema musicians spanning 2011-2018. ...This book will be interesting to music scholars, educators, and performers and anyone who has asked themselves questions about music and its place in society, particularly during times of struggle or unrest."" --CAML Review-- ""CAML Reviews"" ""Sonorous Worlds offers a note of hope in its celebration of utopian creativity through music."" --NACLA Report on the Americas--Julie Skurski ""NACLA Report on the Americas"""
Sonorous Worlds offers a note of hope in its celebration of utopian creativity through music. --NACLA Report on the Americas--Julie Skurski NACLA Report on the Americas
Author Information
Yana Stainova is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University.
