One of the foundational projects ever undertaken in the final by Seville Symphony Orchestra was the creation of a school that would serve both as a quarry and a springboard for young musicians coming out of conservatories Andalusians. The idea was not far from original, as many of the great orchestras of the world have similar institutions. In one way or another, a system of musical education must have a high training center or at least alternatives for students to come into contact with professional reality before graduation. And when something does not exist, young people seek it wherever it exists.
In the early 1990's, revived the finances for years of uninterrupted economic growth and juicy by the arrival of EU funds, cultural activity in Andalusia appeared headed to a golden age. Perhaps confident that growth would stop as ever, the regional government decided to sponsor and institutional support four major orchestral ensembles, which were to transform the gray musical life of the community. He forgot, however, of foundations. Conservatories continued to languish as usual and their best students abroad looking for what the land could not offer.
After a successful diagnosis of the shortcomings of the system, the Ministry of Culture launched in 1994 the Andalusian Programme for Young Soloists, Orquesta Joven de Andalucía with the explicit aim to "bridge the gap between the end of the training stage of young musicians and their subsequent incorporation into active professional life. " With natural fluctuations, the project has been performing to the satisfaction of its key targets to a more reasonable cost. The statistics reflect this: over 60% of students who have gone through the OJA work as teachers in conservatories in the community, 25% have found its place in professional orchestras, not just English. In view of these data, we can say that for the OJA has been a super money spent.
Therefore, the Andalusian musical world was surprised when in 2003 the Andalusian decided to host each summer and indefinitely to another youth orchestra, which until then had been an itinerant character, the West-Eastern Divan (in Later, WEDO), which was created in 1999 by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said as a way to create opportunities for coexistence between Israeli and Arab children. Not content with that, Andalusian officials decided the following year to found and support the state budget a foundation linked to the WEDO (Barenboim-Said Foundation, hereinafter FBS), one of whose first actions was the creation of an Academy of Studies orchestral in Seville with a teacher who came (and still coming) almost exclusively from the lecterns of the Staatskapelle Berlin, the resident orchestra of the Staatsoper unter den Linden, the opera house which Barenboim conducts the German capital.
Orchestral Studies Academy was born and a high performance center, probably necessary, but a faculty of 3,500 kilometers distant natural home, visiting three to seven weekends a year, and without an orchestra! The overlap with the activities of the Andaluz seemed clear. The aims of both institutions were largely identical, but unlike the BSF project, the YOA itself was already an orchestra that, taking accredited models worldwide, working with a faculty vary according to the objectives of each encounter with a much lower cost per pupil at the Academy. Moreover, its practical results were already real, testable. In return, the FBS and WEDO Andalusian politicians offered something that was beyond the scope of its local counterpart: international glamor and prestige . Not in vain in the WEDO tour, which support multi disc, there are frequent high political personalities. Barenboim and Said received the 2002 Prince of Asturias Concord was dead, Palestinian intellectual, the Argentine director sounds repeatedly as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. All this irresistible for politicians more concerned with image than efficiency.
The choice was so starkly posed, especially with the advent of the crisis could opt for a domestic model, but guaranteed results at a reasonable cost, or otherwise, shiny, expensive and not necessarily more effective, but offered undeniable political benefits in terms of image. The choice of policy makers has been clarifying Andalusia in recent years as the space OJA (activities, budgets, even sites) was reduced. In 2011 the figures reached conspicuous unfairness: the OJA (plus Youth Choir and Children's Choir of Andalusia, driven by the now ousted director Michael Thomas) will be € 250,000 budget, the FBS, with 2 million. The circle seems closed: the Academy of Barenboim and his Berlin teachers and found his orchestra in Spain.
[ Diario de Sevilla. 06/02/2011 ]
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