Creator of Venezuelan youth orchestras Abreu dead at 79
Last edited Sun Mar 25, 2018, 02:46 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Associated Press
Creator of Venezuelan youth orchestras Abreu dead at 79
By JOSHUA GOODMAN
Yesterday
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Jose Antonio Abreu, the Venezuelan government economist turned musical educator who created a network of youth orchestras that has been replicated in dozens of countries around the world, died Saturday. He was 79.
His death was announced by the newspaper El Universal, where his brother Jesus Abreu is president. No cause was given, but Abreu had been known to be battling several illnesses ever since he retired from El Sistema, as the musical education program is known, a few years ago.
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Abreu was the teacher to generations of Venezuelan classical music performers. His most famous protege, Gustavo Dudamel, musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, tweeted a picture of the two Saturday dedicated to Abreu “with devoted love and eternal gratitude.”
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Born in the western city of Valera in 1939, El Maestro, as Abreu was almost universally known in Venezuela, studied music from an early age. But he initially put his artistic aspirations on hold to become an economist, teaching at two universities in Caracas, and later entering politics. ... Well into his 30s in 1975, he formed a small orchestra of a dozen young musicians that would become the seed for El Sistema. Four decades later, the government-financed program claims to currently put 1 million Venezuelan children in contact with classical music through a network of hundreds of youth choirs, orchestras and music centers spread across the country.
Read more: https://apnews.com/671db2bbae934a2399796b62d112f7f0
Jose Antonio Abreu, the Venezuelan government economist turned musical educator who created a network of youth orchestras since replicated in dozens of countries around the world, dies at age 79, @joshgoodman writes.
Link to tweet
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Edited to give this a much better title than the original. All I had at the time was the tweet.
= new reply since forum marked as read
