Traveling Andean conservatory - unique world experience

Preparing new generations through an innovative program of specialized music teaching for the children and young people of the Andean Community is the objective of the Traveling Andean Conservatory (CAI). In close collaboration with the State Foundation for the National System of Youth and Children's Orchestras of Venezuela (FESNOJIV) and the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ecuador (FOSJE), the Andean Development Corporation is now implementing the second phase of a new kind of strategy for regional and cultural integration. The program began over a year ago with the creation of the Andean Countries Youth Symphony Orchestra, a group of 160 young people from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, which made a successful debut in October last year in Quito.

Creative push To keep up with the speed of change in the world, the CAI is preparing a high-level human contingent to bring children and young people from the Andean region into the music education system and train them as teachers and instrumentalists.

Several missions of Venezuelan music teachers have an exacting agenda in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in 2001-2002. The first delegation is due to arrive in Quito on August 11 to work with the Ecuador Youth Symphony Orchestra. For ten days, seven teachers led by director Ulises Ascanio will work intensively with 60 members of the Ecuadorian selection from the Andean Countries Youth Symphony Orchestra to stimulate the leadership and competitive capacity through specialized instrument workshops.

Two other missions have already visited Peru and Colombia, and another will soon visit Bolivia. Enrique García, executive president of the CAF, is enthusiastic about the initiative and fully backs the institution’s role in the dissemination and promotion of the region’s cultural and artistic expressions as a means of building better societies. "While building roads, designing electric plants and promoting industry is fundamental for creating wealth and distributing it to the majority of the people, concentration on this area alone leaves out a fundamental element. The target of development is human beings and this is where the CAF also has an important role," García said.

Innovation, talent and education: keys to social welfare Considering that globalization is affecting Andean countries with deep structural inequalities, the inescapable challenge to integrate into the knowledge era depends on our achievements in education. As the UNESCO report on education for the 21st century states, the agenda must be based on the pillars of coexistence, personal and collective acceptance, critical judgment and progress based on work.

In the opinion of Ana Mercedes Botero, director of Secretariat and External Relations at the CAF, this is "a challenge that forces us to combat the negative indicators in education which have plagued the region for decades and visualize a new direction based on ethics and value training." She adds: "This is precisely what we want to do with the Andean Countries Youth Symphony Orchestra, and now with the CAI. Initiatives that make a decisive contribution to stimulating individual and collective awareness, drawing together the social fabric and building the means for better community participation."

The results of this process have not been long in coming. A successful concert tour took the Andean Countries Youth Symphony Orchestra to the capital cities of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela in a living example of integration and talent. One year after its creation, its 160 members are ready to become the first students of the CAI, which will add an average of 200 new students from all over the region.

With the help of the music organizations that have participated in the setting up of the orchestra - Fundación Batuta of Colombia, Fundación Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil of Ecuador, Conservatorio Nacional de Música of Peru and Orquesta Juvenil de Urubichá of Bolivia - the CAI will put through a program to train and strengthen a network of teaching groups. The multiplying effect of this initiative is aimed at developing new leaders, promoting national and regional competitiveness and making a positive impact on the quality of life of participants and their communities.

To close this first cycle of the CAI in February next year, a seminar on competitiveness will be held and the orchestra will give a series of concerts.

The Venezuelan teachers who will join the Traveling Conservatory in Ecuador are: - Maestro Ulises Escanio, violín (head of mission). - Julián Ramos: obo - Jesús Zambrano: double bass - William Molina: cello - Victor Rojas: flute - Edgar Saume: percussion - Daniel León: trombone-tuba