[contextly_auto_sidebar] Anne Midgette of the Washington Post wrote a sobering review of Eric Booth and Tricia Tunstall’s recent book “Playing for Their Lives”. As the Executive Director of the El Sistema inspired program Play On Philly and founding Board Chairman of El Sistema USA, I would offer a few answers to the questions that are at the heart of her critique: What is El Sistema and what is it actually accomplishing? I define poor from the pre-Latin word pau-paros, which means “producing little; getting little”. My travels around the … [Read more...]