A Musical Celebration in Italy

On Monday 19th October 2009 Children in Crisis Italy celebrated their 10th Anniversary by holding a special concert at Milan’s prestigious Teatro alla Scala featuring the world famous Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela directed by Maestro Gustav Dudamel. 

The Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra gathers 200 of Venezula’s most talented young musicians.  These performers are brought together through a scheme founded in 1975 by Maestro Abreu, the ex-minister of Culture in Venezuela, which encourages boys and girls living in the most degraded barrios in the country to take up playing an instrument.  This scheme now involves a network of 250,000 young people in Venezuela, 90% of which come from impoverished families. 

Their director, Maestro Gustav Dudamel, born in 1981 in Barquisimento, Venezuela, is fittingly one of the youngest conductors in the world today, and also one of the most sought-after.  His outstanding performances have resulted in the media and critics hailing him as one of the most exciting and compelling conductors of our time. 

This fantastic event held in the presence of Children in Crisis’ Founder and Life President, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York and the Mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, was an immense success with a fantastic 100,000 euros raised for Children in Crisis on the night.