The Score | Books in Brief

Playing for Their Lives: The Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music by Tricia Tunstall and Eric Booth. W.W. Norton: 408 pages, $28.95. Since its origins in 1975 as the brainchild of José Antonio Abreu, a Venezuelan government official and conservatory-trained musician, El Sistema has spread to more than 60 countries, inspiring musicians and educators with its potential for uplifting young people, even those in seemingly desperate conditions of poverty and stress, through the rigorous study of music. Tunstall, author of Changing Lives: Gustavo Dudamel, El Sistema, and the Transformative Power of Music (2013), and Booth, a longtime faculty member at Juilliard and Lincoln Center Education, traveled widely in researching this book, and the result is a blend of anecdotal color and pedagogical analysis. Many activities are documented in extensive photographs. The book is exhaustively indexed, and an appendix catalogues El Sistema-inspired programs in countries ranging from Angola to Greenland to Vietnam, and in virtually every state of the U.S.