A local music education program in Santa Cruz County is in the running for a $500,000 national prize.
El Sistema Santa Cruz/Pajaro Valley, a non-profit organization serving the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, is a finalist for the 2023 Lewis Prize for Music Accelerator Awards. The competition, now in its third year, honors music programs that offer students “access to learning, creating, and performing experiences that reflect their culture and identity,” according to the prize organization’s website. While 249 programs from across the country applied for the prize, El Sistema is one of only ten to be named a finalist.
“It’s big. It’s really big,” said El Sistema Executive Director Isabelle Tuncer.
Tuncer, who previously worked as an attorney and an international development consultant, founded the program in 2012. At the time, she said, the school district had eliminated nearly all its music programs. Today, El Sistema provides free music education to roughly 1,000 students from kindergarten through high school in the southern part of the county.
“That’s a major need,” she said. “It’s not only giving access to music, but it’s also for them to be proud of who they are and where they're coming from.”
That pride is on full display, whether El Sistema student musicians are performing at concerts in the community, or at school assemblies like a recent one at Radcliff Elementary School in Watsonville. There, 17 students prepared to put their talents on display.
They were led by El Sistema pre-orchestra director Camilo Ortiz. But the students did not seem to need much direction as they confidently carried their instruments into the school’s courtyard, put them in place, and prepared to perform for their classmates. It was near the end of the school day on a Friday, but as the audience took their seats, no one seemed anxious to start their weekend. Instead, they eagerly awaited their end-of-the-week treat.
Some of the musicians, like fifth-grader Evelyn Lopez, admitted that playing for the whole school was daunting.
“I was kind of nervous, but excited at the same time,” she said.
But the jitters seemed to melt away as the schoolyard filled with music performed with a degree of precision one might not normally associate with an elementary school orchestra.
These students play on xylophones of varying shapes and sizes, with some light accompaniment by Ortiz on guitar. Ortiz is certified in a music education method known as the Orff Approach. Developed by German composer Carl Orff in the 1920s, it treats music as a basic skill, taught initially through exercises like song and dance, then progressing to percussion instruments and beyond.
“We don't teach music the way that music is taught in a conservatory,” Ortiz said.
El Sistema Santa Cruz combines that teaching method with a philosophy based on the original El Sistema program, developed in Venezuela in the 1970s. The idea is to use music education to leverage broader social change. That is particularly relevant at a school like Radcliff, where 97% of the students are considered economically disadvantaged.
“It is extremely important, because it’s showing them that there is a world out there that they don't know,” Ortiz said. “Music opens opportunities that they didn’t know exist.”
All of that lines up well with the aims of the Lewis Prize, established by investor and philanthropist Daniel Lewis to promote access to music education.
The organization’s CEO, Dalouge Smith, said judges were impressed with the El Sistema students’ confidence as shown in videos submitted with their application, as well as the group’s close partnership with the school district.
“This is about really recognizing what young people need, what others who are trying to support young people need, and what the whole community needs,” Smith said. “And El Sistema Santa Cruz really is achieving in all of those areas.”
While the program heavily emphasizes teamwork, there is also plenty of room for individual growth and achievement. At the Radcliff school assembly, fifth grader Alvaro Contreras got to play a solo.
Afterward, he was beaming as he described what it was like to learn the piece, starting from scratch and practicing to the point where he could perform it for the whole school.
“It feels great,” he said with a broad smile, “because I feel like, in the past, I was struggling so much trying to do it.”
Tuncer said the Lewis Prize could allow El Sistema to expand. The competition will award top prizes of $500,000 to three finalists, but the rest will not go home empty-handed. They are eligible for awards of up to $50,000.
“It will allow us to reach our goal faster,” she said.
El Sistema is currently operating in nine Pajaro Valley schools during the academic year, as well as five sites in summer school. But the district has more than 30 campuses in all.
The students said they, too, were excited to be finalists for the prize, though winning it was not necessarily their top priority.
“I hope we win,” said fifth-grader Bella Minchaca. “But if we don’t, at least we’re still in music.”
