Caracas: “the world’s largest concert” brings together 12,000 musicians

The gathering of thousands of young members of the national system of orchestra and infant and juvenile choirs of Venezuela, Saturday, November 13, in the Court of Honor of the Military Academy of the Capital of the Country, could register As a new record in the Guinness book.

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The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela tries to register a record in the Guinness book. Saturday, November 13, 12,000 young people and as many musical instruments were gathered in the Military Academy, in Caracas, for “the world’s largest concert”. The previous record was detained by Russia which in 2019 had collected 8,097 musicians.

“Nothing is impossible for Venezuelan youth,” says Vice-President, Delcy Rodriguez, who pronounces a brief speech just before megaconcert. President Nicolas Maduro is not there. M me Rodriguez evokes the memory of Libertador Simon Bolivar, hero of Latin American independence There are exactly two hundred years, and that of the “Maestro José Abreu”, the founder of the system, who died in 2018. In Venezuela, the system with a capital, it is the nacional sistema of Las Orquestas Juveniles e infantiles (national system of orchestras and infant and juvenile choirs), a program created in 1975 to make music education accessible to all children, including the poorest.

“Gift to humanity”

Cameras and drones flies the tight rows of musicians in white shirt. The grandiose images are displayed on the dozen giant screens that typize the walls of the military establishment and all the television of the country. The Vice-Chairperson pursues: “All Venezuelans, including our migrant brothers, are today proud of their nation.” Fleeing the crisis that has been devastating their country since 2015, some six million Venezuelans have taken the way to exile .

Sunday, the time is national emotion. “Music and peace are the Gift of Venezuela to humanity”, enthuses the presenter of the television channel Telesur. And to remember that Mr. Abreu’s system was replicated in seventy countries in the world. Behind their mask, the musicians have a smile. The youngest have just 8 years.

When the first notes of Tchaikovski’s Slavic walking, many Venezuelans are wrestling a tear and tell it on Twitter. Others denounce the political recovery of the show by the power and refuse to give in to the emotion “not to make the game of the dictatorship of Maduro”. “The system is 46 years old, it owes nothing in Chavez,” says a user. The leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, Hugo Chavez, ruled the country from 1999 to 2013.

Prevent “misinterpread”

“Abreu has founded the system, but Chavez has made it massive,” retorts a young music teacher in front of the Telesur cameras. Orchestra leaders, men or women, who succeed one another on the podium look like kids. The national anthem resonates in the falling night.

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/Media reports.