Finally Music was the solution.

Finally Music was the solution.

It was a great meltdown!  When the world economy collapsed giving an explanation to the decay of everything... When cultural poverty revealed some artists from bazars... When music school lost lots of pupils at every start of a new academic year...

We thought we knew everything concerning music and we had most probably forgotten that we had to share knowledge and do so in the most appealing way existing. We must not be afraid of changing our methods, of using today's teaching methods in order to restore passion in artistic debate.

For a long time, for a very long time music was enjoyed solely by a kind of elite... So much reserved that it could become sad, so much severe and tiresome that nobody was interested in it anymore.

Then the Orchestras at School have come, have blossomed children by entire classes proving they were the most wonderful social tool that we could imagine. So new hopes are born, new ways to see and feel the Music ;  methods changed, the way to teach fitted the children in those days, the notion of pleasure seemed to go back to teaching. Gradually, the old method's fundamentalists lost their influence while pleasure and art were coming back.

So in some schools that were put in the category first educational need, but not only there, educational teams have been witnessing the transformation, the blossom and even sometimes miraculously the integration and the well being at school of children and teenagers. It was doing so good that, from this moment on, the idea of developing this orchestra device anywhere else became legitimate and its necessity has been recognized beginning to justify hundreds and then thousands of jobs for musicians who took part.

Tomorrow, if nothing turns in disrupt the logical development of these orchestras within the National Education we will be able to note that the musical utopia will have changed the french cultural landscape : concerts are always more numerous, there is once again queue at music schools ; a new mission, a new gratitude for musicians, a strong relation between the education stakeholders and the culture, social and youth stakeholders...

Here! It was finally the solution... and it was too simple... to restore the art and the culture at the center of education.

This utopical text is really close to what may be a near reality. What is missing?

Undoubtedly a greater commitment from the musicians who have given up believing in music!

Yes, a great come back is occurring... Yes it was proved that socialy speaking the orchestra is the tool which was needed to offer a greater cohesion at school. Yes the change will occur with musician stakeholders, music school teachers because they are the ones who are skilled... Yes a disastrous economical period is suitable to the blossom of the Art and the Culture, simply because it all we have got left!

Unlike what some people maintain, the institutions seem to be ready to consider this big change. The work of the shadow completed by the associations has been huge. Let's get close to these convinced militants and stand by their side stakeholders of this change.

Jean-Claude Decalonne