In Venezuela, learning as Dudamel did

The Don Bosco Communal Center looks much like any other social services agency building in any hardscrabble barrio anywhere in Latin America. But step inside and you may hear the opening notes of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 spilling from a second-floor rehearsal room filled with 15- and 16-year-old string players. Or youthful fingers plucking a traditional Venezuelan folk tune on a harp, accompanied by a soft percussive rattle. In the poor hillside neighborhood of Chapellin and at nearly 250 other locales throughout this nation, tens of thousands of young Venezuelans are learning to play classical music and to make art a permanent cornerstone of their lives. They’re the latest recruits of El Sistema, or the System, a 34-year-old program that many regard as a model not only for music instruction but also for helping children develop into productive, responsible citizens.