El Alto to host first National Workshop of CAF Children-Youth Orchestras

(La Paz, November 25, 2010).- As part of the CAF Social Action through Music Program, created and executed by financial institution since 2000, the first National Workshop of Children-Youth Orchestras will be held in the city of El Alto from November 29 to December 8 next, with the participation of 57 young Bolivian musicians from the cities of La Paz, Santa Cruz, Tarija, Oruro and El Alto. The activity in Bolivia is also backed by BancoSol through its ClaveSol program.

This activity – which CAF has been executing for a decade in countries such as Argentina Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela – has become a "flagship" program in the field of human development and capacity building in music, producing successful results for the benefit of talented children and young people in Latin America.

"CAF believes that music is an ideal tool for education because of its capacity to enhance and integrate people’s aptitudes." In this respect, the program offers children and young people the opportunity to develop their intellectual, physical, spiritual and expressive capacities through choral and orchestral practice," Emilio Uquillas, CAF director-representative in Bolivia, said.

In the next few days, Venezuelan teachers Luis Guillermo Pérez Rhio Sánchez Affigne, Roberto Zambrano, Algeria Martínez, Efraín Lara, Jesus Sira will arrive in the country to teach instrumental technique in viola, violin, cello and double bass to 57 children and young participants. The objective is for the students to create a common platform and a totally horizontal criterion in order to perform musical works in conditions of high quality and guarantee academic uniformity in technical and teaching terms.

The training workshops will be held in the EMAUS House of Meetings and Retreats of the Sembrando Esperanza Foundation located in the 1o de Mayo area of El Alto. The workshops consist of a preliminary assessment of the technical and musical level of the students. The classes, which are individual and group by instrument, use teaching material which includes sheet music, books and material on instrumental technique. The studies also cover position of the body, articulation and emission of sound, among others.

The activity also benefits children and young people in the ClaveSol program who initiated a training process in June in popular barrios in the cities of El Alto and La Paz under the direction of maestro Freddy Céspedes and 30 of the best students of the El Alto Symphony Orchestra, who accompany the process as teachers.

Since its start, the CAF Social Action through Music Program, in Latin America, has taught 40,000 children and young people from vulnerable sectors, trained 380 teachers who are now multiplying the model in their communities and have given 130 instrumental, choral and lutherie workshops in 36 Latin American locations. Today 45 institutions are replicating the model in various Latin American countries.

ClaveSol is an initiative of the Social Capital Unit of BancoSol. The project, which consists of teaching violin, viola, cello and double bass, is targeted at children and young people from popular barrios of El Alto and La Paz, who wish to occupy their free time and transmit positive values which contribute to the development of peoples. So far over 300 students have taken part in the CLAVESOL Children’s and Youth Orchestra.