El Sistema Greece is a community music project that aims to promote the social inclusion of refugee children in Greek/European society. By teaching music, refugee children are inspired to strive for a better future, while music provides the platform for dialogue and togetherness across diverse communities. The musical activities will be led by Greek and foreign teachers, professional musicians and internationally-known artists.

Greece in America met co-founder of El Sistema Greece, Anis Barnat, during his recent visit to Washington DC, where he presented the project to the American public. Anis discusses the inspiration behind the project and announces that world renowned conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the flagship orchestra from El Sistema Venezuela plan to perform in Athens next summer!

What was the motivating factor behind your efforts to found El Sistema Greece?

El Sistema Greece just tried to follow Plato’s advice: “I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning”.

I have had the chance to organize since 2014 all the international touring of the Venezuelan ensembles of El Sistema. In every tour, I plan many outreach activities towards local populations. In any part of the world, I am always fascinated by the way the musicians interact between themselves no matter their origins, religions and nationalities; and how a common language is found to create in a very short time a new community. Music develops solidarity and fraternity, I can testify it!
 

Bringing El Sistema to Greece was obvious as it is a very efficient and proven tool for social inclusion for any child. The refugee crisis in Greece motivated us to do something, trying to participate in the solutions that the Greeks are implementing on the ground. After one year of existence, El Sistema Greece is giving daily lessons in many refugee camps and enhances the well-being of children through music education; it promotes the dialogue and provides a positive experience of joint co-creation; and it develops the ability of the children to work in a team and to build a community. Taking care of these children is vital today as we believe that music builds bridges and takes borders down.

Share with us your personal view in regard to how the Greek people coped with the refugee crisis.

I have the utmost respect for the Greeks: in the last couple of years, more than 1 million migrants arrived in Greece. For a country of 11 million this represents a challenging situation, to say the least.

Greece, like the USA, is a country of immigration – maybe this is why the Greeks have been so good in dealing with such a flow of newcomers. I am very impressed by the management of the terrible situation that Greece has shown to the world. The nomination for Nobel peace prize in 2016 for the Greek islanders did not surprise me in this respect.
 

El Sistema Greece has received much support and appreciation from the Greeks, wishing to help in any possible way. This humanitarian crisis revealed the personality of the Greeks: open-minded, warm, generous and resilient against difficulties. The Greek music teachers we are working with are doing miracles in the classrooms, their commitment is tireless and their patience is limitless! They are the true heroes of El Sistema Greece, always ready to make a difference in order to integrate all the children to Greek society.

What are your future plans?

We plan to continue and strengthen our foundations: the daily lessons in the refugee camps. We aim to develop the musical exchanges between Greeks, migrants and refugees: we go regularly to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center to offer free music lessons, mixing all the children living in Greece. We will participate in a couple of weeks in the TEDx Academy in Athens with a mixed choir and Venezuelan musicians.
 

We have many other plans in the future but one should not be missed. You should definitely book your airplane tickets for Athens next July 2018, as we will have a big surprise that we prepare with the Megaron – you will be happy to hear here before everybody else that we plan to invite one of the flagship orchestra from El Sistema Venezuela with its musical iconic Ambassador Gustavo Dudamel!

How can US citizens and the Greek-American community in particular join your efforts?

Investing in human capital is not common! It is not really measurable, as we invest in the brains of the next generations of humanity. If the refugee children that arrive today in Greece, fleeing their countries at war, are not stimulated intellectually and we do not show that we care about them, these same children will be very easy to recruit by the terrorists because they will have all the reasons to be angry at the western world, represented by Greece but also by the USA. To have a less conflictual world and to avoid a catastrophe, it is vital to provide these children with some education and integrate them in the environment they live in. Music is only part of the solution, but it has been proven to be a powerful tool.
 

Through the Friends of El Sistema Greece we can make sure that the program continues, develops to all the refugee camps in Greece, and proves that integration is possible. We hope that the Greek-American community can:

-    Join the Friends of El Sistema Greece and support the activities;
-    Offer opportunities to speak about El Sistema Greece in conferences, fundraising events, and any media;
-    Donate instruments for the orchestras of El Sistema Greece;
-    Sponsor a student of El Sistema Greece for his/her lessons in the refugee camps and participate in building a brighter future for these children.

To join El Sistema Greece and for additional information please contact: info@elsistemagreece.com

Watch Sistema Europe Youth Orchestra (SEYO) and El Sistema Greece perform at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens here 

Photo credits: Angel Ballesteros

BIO
Anis Barnat lives most of the times in Athens where he founded El Sistema Greece, a free music programme for the children in refugee camps and vulnerable children in Greece. After his studies, Anis worked at the French Embassy in the USA as Deputy Cultural Attaché. He was then appointed General Manager of the Maitrise de Radio France in Paris. Anis has always been interested in education and social change through music. He was a professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris for the topic “music and politics”. It is his current position at Askonas Holt responsible for all the Venezuelan Sistema projects and organizing all the orchestra and choir tours of – amongst others – the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela with Gustavo Dudamel that has inspired him to found El Sistema Greece.