El Sistema Greece FIESTA

El Sistema Greece celebrates its 10th anniversary with El Sistema Greece FIESTA, a festival of collective music-making culminating in a public concert on Sunday, 27 September at The American College of Greece (ACG). Taking place in Athens from 24 to 27 September, El Sistema Greece FIESTA is a four-day festival dedicated to collective musical creation. More than 250 musicians and choristers from different orchestras, choirs, and musical communities will come together to rehearse, exchange musical ideas, and collaboratively create a programme combining works from the symphonic repertoire with music from Latin America. For many participants, this will be the first time they perform together, and the outcome of this four-day creative process will be presented to the public for the first time on Sunday, 27 September. El Sistema Greece FIESTA also marks the beginning of a new collaboration between El Sistema Greece and The American College of Greece (ACG), aiming to strengthen young people's access to music education and collective artistic creation. At El Sistema Greece FIESTA, the concert begins long before the audience takes their seats. Through a musical promenade, small ensembles from El Sistema Greece will bring different areas of the campus to life, transforming the audience's arrival into part of the celebration itself. The participants will be guided by two distinguished figures from El Sistema in Venezuela. Internationally acclaimed conductor Christian Vásquez, Musical and Artistic Director of the Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra (VE) and recently nominated Associate Conductor of the Orquestra de València in Spain, will lead the orchestral ensembles, while celebrated choral conductor Lourdes Sánchez, main choral reference in El Sistema and in South America, will lead the choirs’ musical preparation and conduct. The festival brings together the El Sistema Greece Academy, El Sistema Greece Youth Orchestra, Decibel Collective, Kypseli Orchestra, the El Sistema Greece Youth Choir, and students participating from across all El Sistema Greece nucleos. They will be joined by the ACG Community Choir, the Intercultural Choir of the Greek National Opera, the Underground Youth Orchestra, the Underground Kids Orchestra, and additional musicians, presenting together the musical outcome of this four-day collaborative creative process. In Spanish, the word fiesta means celebration. Not a celebration with spectators, but one with participants. This is the idea behind El Sistema Greece FIESTA: an open invitation for the audience to become part of the musical experience. — El Sistema Greece is an educational music programme for social inclusion. It provides free, high-quality music education to children and young people across Greece. Its mission is to build a musical community that embraces diversity and empowers its students by developing their musical skills while encouraging independent thinking and initiative. All activities are free of charge, open to every child, and delivered through group learning. El Sistema Greece's intercultural ensembles offer a unique approach to collaborative music learning, inspired by the principles and pioneering educational practices of Venezuela's El Sistema. Christian Vásquez is an internationally acclaimed conductor and one of the most distinguished musicians to emerge from Venezuela’s El Sistema. He studied conducting under José Antonio Abreu and currently serves as Artistic Director of the Juan José Landaeta Symphony Orchestra and Associate Conductor of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. He is also Associate Conductor of the Orquestra de València. From 2010 to 2017, he served as Music Director of the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra, and has held positions as Principal Guest Conductor of both the Gävle Symphony Orchestra and the Dutch Het Gelders Orkest. He has collaborated with leading ensembles including the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Paris Opera, where he has worked alongside Gustavo Dudamel. Lourdes Sánchez is one of the leading figures in Latin American choral music and has played a key role in the development and consolidation of El Sistema’s choral program in Venezuela. As Manager of the Academic Choral Program and Director of the Simón Bolívar National Choir, she has led major symphonic-choral productions at internationally renowned venues and festivals, including La Scala in Milan, the Salzburg Festival, Lincoln Center in New York, the Royal Festival Hall at London’s Southbank Centre, the Auditorium of Radio France, and the Royal Chapel of Versailles, collaborating closely with Maestro Gustavo Dudamel. In 2023, she received a Latin Grammy Award for her participation in the album Four Elements Immersive Symphony for Orchestra and Chorus. Her extensive experience also includes advising music education projects across Europe, the Americas, and Africa, with a particular focus on choral training, collective singing, and the development of new generations of conductors. El Sistema Greece FIESTA Sunday, 27 September 2026 Arrival time slots: 16.30 | 17.00 | 17.30 Pierce Theater | The American College of Greece (ACG) Free admission