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At one point during a solo, he pointed his trumpet bell at the conductor \u2014 Grant Park Music Festival artistic director Giancarlo Guerrero, an old friend \u2014 and blew a teasing raspberry.<\/p>\n
Before Flores became an international soloist, and Guerrero famous enough to score a cameo appearance<\/a> in Bad Bunny\u2019s ecstatic, pan-Latin halftime show, both men passed through the same organization: El Sistema Nacional de Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela, or \u201cEl Sistema\u201d for short.<\/p>\n Flores was the principal trumpet player of the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Symphony Orchestra, an all-star orchestra which accepts the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me of regional Sistema orchestras around Venezuela. Guerrero, then in his 20s, was appointed to lead one of those orchestras, in the western state of T\u00e1chira \u2014 his first professional conducting job.<\/p>\n \u201cI owe basically my career to El Sistema and Venezuela,\u201d Guerrero, 56, told WBEZ in a recent phone interview.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before Pacho Flores (left) became an international soloist, and Giancarlo Guerrero (right) famous enough to score a cameo appearance in Bad Bunny\u2019s halftime show, both men passed through the same organization: El Sistema Nacional de Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Grant Park Music Festival<\/p>\n El Sistema was founded in 1975 by economist and conductor Jos\u00e9 Antonio Abreu, a former cultural minister who used his political clout to turn El Sistema into a state-run program. The country\u2019s oil boom fueled El Sistema\u2019s rapid growth, organized into so-called n\u00facleos \u2014 like the one Guerrero led, in T\u00e1chira \u2014 across all 23 states in Venezuela.<\/p>\n Its top orchestra, the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Symphony Orchestra, first became a global sensation after a high-octane performance at the 2007 BBC Proms<\/a>, donning windbreakers emblazoned with the Venezuelan flag. More recently, the orchestra opened for Coldplay during its 10 sold-out concerts at Wembley Stadium last summer, with frontman Chris Martin hailing it onstage<\/a> as \u201cmaybe the best orchestra in the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, El Sistema alums are conspicuously well-represented in classical music institutions and conservatories everywhere. This fall, Venezuela-born conductor Gustavo Dudamel, 45, will take the reins of America\u2019s most visible classical music post, the New York Philharmonic, while still acting as music director of the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Symphony Orchestra. Fellow conductor Rafael Payare, who participated in El Sistema at the same time as Dudamel, leads the San Diego and Montr\u00e9al symphonies.<\/p>\n And Venezuelan musicians are members of some of the world\u2019s best orchestras, from the Berlin Philharmonic to our own Chicago Symphony.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople talk about oil, especially nowadays in Venezuela,\u201d Guerrero said. \u201cHonestly, it is professional classical music which may be the biggest export for that country.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI owe basically my career to El Sistema and Venezuela,\u201d Giancarlo Guerrero, artistic director and principal conductor of Chicago\u2019s Grant Park Music Festival, told WBEZ in a recent phone interview.<\/p>\n Victor Hilitski for the Sun-Times<\/p>\n Amid a flashpoint in U.S.-Venezuela relations and ramped up domestic immigration enforcement, the future of that export has never been more in question. Last June, the State Department stopped issuing visas<\/a>, including student visas, to Venezuelan nationals, with limited exceptions. Those exceptions were narrowed further in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n That spells uncertainty for Venezuelan musicians who might have otherwise moved to Chicago to pursue their career, whether at the city\u2019s many top-tier conservatories or through early-career opportunities at the Chicago Symphony, Civic Orchestra of Chicago or Grant Park Music Festival.<\/p>\n \u201cI have two [Venezuelan] students who want to come, who are really good, and I\u2019d like them to come,\u201d said Almita Vamos, a Chicago-based violin pedagogue whose prestigious studio attracts students from around the globe. \u201cI don\u2019t know if they can.\u201d<\/p>\n Play, sing and fight<\/p>\n El Sistema is a massive organization that defies easy definition. Its core operations pertain to its nationwide network of community music schools that offer extracurricular instruction to children free of charge.<\/p>\n However, it also encompasses several professional ensembles, all at the apex of their respective regional n\u00facleos. Accomplished students, no matter how young, can progress and join the ranks.<\/p>\n The Nicaraguan-born, Costa Rica\u2013raised Guerrero says that kids as young as 12 and 13 years old played alongside veteran musicians in his professional orchestra in T\u00e1chira. Sometimes, members from various levels of the n\u00facleo play together for special events \u2014 a spectacle of orchestral performance that doubled as a learning experience for the younger musicians.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019d be doing Beethoven symphonies with 400 players,\u201d Guerrero recalled.<\/p>\n Even in its earliest years, El Sistema\u2019s focus on ensemble education \u2014 at first orchestral education, with choirs added later \u2014 set it apart from other free music programs. Founder Jos\u00e9 Antonio Abreu codified El Sistema\u2019s mission as one of social uplift, drawing parallels between the collaborative nature of a musical ensemble and civic participation. More idealistically, El Sistema positions itself as a way for Venezuela to conquer growing poverty and gang violence \u2014 echoed in its mantra to \u201cplay, sing and fight\u201d (\u201ctocar, cantar y luchar\u201d).<\/p>\n \u201cThe project was always seen as national development as opposed to cultural or artistic development,\u201d says Norma N\u00fa\u00f1ez-Ruch, operations manager of both the Loop venue Guarneri Hall<\/a> and Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center in Hermosa.<\/p>\n N\u00fa\u00f1ez-Ruch, 39, trained on the viola through El Sistema and held administrative jobs in the program for six years before working at some spinoff programs in the U.S.<\/p>\n After the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Orchestra, and by extension El Sistema, dazzled the world 20 years ago, copycat programs sprung up in under-resourced communities across the globe. Some of the most prominent examples in the United States include the Los Angeles Philharmonic\u2019s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) and the Baltimore Symphony\u2019s OrchKids program, a brainchild of Ravinia chief conductor Marin Alsop.<\/p>\n Locally, Ravinia\u2019s Reach Teach Play programming also includes a Sistema-inspired pillar for orchestral students<\/a>, as does the People\u2019s Music School<\/a> in Uptown.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ravinia\u2019s Reach Teach Play programming includes a Sistema-inspired pillar for orchestral students.<\/p>\n Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere\/Sun-Times<\/p>\n El Sistema is not merely a pedagogical program. Musicians of any age can advance to its paid, professional-level orchestras, and, in many cases, children are paid enough to become the primary breadwinners for their family. That incentivizes students\u2019 participation and progression in El Sistema, but also sometimes lends it a brutal competitive edge.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a very good friend who told me he was making more money at 20 than his father, who was an engineer,\u201d says Ricardo Lorenz, a Venezuelan-born composer who now teaches at Michigan State University.<\/p>\n Lorenz and N\u00fa\u00f1ez-Ruch both remember a time when those salaries were enough to keep musicians inside Venezuela. But when its economy collapsed in the 2010s, even well-heeled El Sistema no longer had the funds to retain musicians. A surge in musicians choosing to study and work abroad followed \u2014 and Venezuela\u2019s loss became the world\u2019s gain.<\/p>\n Where music and politics collide<\/p>\n El Sistema and Abreu himself have been the subjects of widespread criticism both within and outside Venezuela for years.<\/p>\n The program was founded more than 20 years before the presidency of Hugo Ch\u00e1vez, whose populist ideology laid the groundwork for the more tight-fisted authoritarianism of his successor, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. But the degree to which El Sistema has been used as a propaganda tool by both regimes has led to accusations of political opportunism and \u201cartwashing\u201d \u2014 in other words, using culture to distract from a bleaker political reality.<\/p>\n Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero, who regularly performs with world-class orchestras like the Chicago Symphony, is one such critic. She told The Times of London last year that \u201cit is no longer morally acceptable to host orchestras owned and operated by rogue states as mechanisms of soft power and influence.\u201d<\/p>\n Many have petitioned Dudamel to take a similarly firm stance. Though the conductor has criticized the Maduro regime in the past<\/a> \u2014 most notably in 2017, when an El Sistema student was killed by soldiers during a protest \u2014 he remains music director of the Sim\u00f3n Bol\u00edvar Symphony Orchestra, El Sistema\u2019s most prestigious ensemble, and a champion for the organization at large.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Venezuelan musicians are members of some of the world\u2019s best orchestras, from the Berlin Philharmonic to our own Chicago Symphony.<\/p>\n When she worked for El Sistema during the Ch\u00e1vez years, N\u00fa\u00f1ez-Ruch notes that many within the organization were clear-eyed about Venezuela\u2019s political realities. At the same time, El Sistema receives some 80% of its funding from the Venezuelan government, leaving the organization essentially stuck.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my perception, [the attitude of El Sistema] was, \u2018Say whatever you want to say as long as we can sustain the work.\u2019 That\u2019s part of the political strategy of the organization and its leadership,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The Venezuelan government\u2019s dysfunction and strong-arming tendencies sometimes snowball into El Sistema itself. While living in Chicago in the early 2000s, Lorenz was helping spearhead a community program with the Chicago Symphony in Pilsen. Abreu pushed Lorenz to forge a connection between the CSO and El Sistema, which never materialized.<\/p>\n But Abreu, who was always \u201csupportive\u201d of Lorenz\u2019s career, later reached out asking if Lorenz would be interested in returning to Venezuela. While Lorenz mulled the offer, Ch\u00e1vez named the composer to replace the current president of the Instituto Universitario De Estudios Musicales in Caracas via his weekly television program, \u201cAl\u00f3 Presidente.\u201d Lorenz was shocked. He\u2019d only been in early talks for the position, which he quickly declined. The episode effectively ended his relationship with Abreu. \u201cHe was very disappointed after that,\u201d Lorenz recalls. (Abreu died in 2018.)<\/p>\n More recently, British scholar Geoffrey Baker has cast doubt on the idea that the program prioritizes social uplift at all. In the absence of demographic data, which El Sistema keeps private, his 2014 book \u201cEl Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela\u2019s Youth\u201d leaned on hundreds of interviews and a year observing El Sistema\u2019s n\u00facleos. Baker\u2019s findings indicated that the program served a core demographic of middle-to-upper-class children, with impoverished students in the minority.<\/p>\n Additionally, Baker observed that El Sistema\u2019s \u201crevolutionary\u201d educational philosophy was, if anything, retrograde. N\u00facleos more often resembled old-school European conservatoires where endless hours of practice were the norm.<\/p>\n \u201cI naively thought that when Abreu died and more musicians left the country, some would start speaking out about the problems,\u201d Baker wrote to WBEZ via e-mail. \u201cBut I hadn\u2019t counted on the fact that El Sistema\u2019s good name was essential to their job prospects overseas \u2014 it was their meal ticket.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Concierto](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771418476_354_.jpeg\")
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