Thank you, Ensemble Medici!

We are very grateful for the Medici Ensemble's visit from Germany, sponsored by the Rotary Club this October! Our students enjoyed a free concert by the quartet and a successful fundraising concert was held at the Kenya Conservatoire of Music. In their words, "The days in Nairobi ... were among the happiest in my life. It was really great to see classical music come to life in Kenya and to feel how excited people are." Asanteni sana, Medici Ensemble!

Ensemble Medici fundraising concert

Ensemble Medici, a visiting string quartet from Germany, is performing a fundraising concert for El Sistema Kenya at the Kenya Conservatoire of Music in the Ballet Studio at 6pm on Thursday, October 20th. Suggested donation for entry is 1,000ksh. The program includes Schubert's "Death and the Maiden," Dvorak's "American" Quartet, and Mozart.

They also met with our kids who attended the concerts and everyone had a blast!

Playing For Their Lives

At the beginning of our journey, Eric Booth visited us in Kawangware and saw our children's potential. El Sistema Kenya has a feature in his new book, "Playing for Their Lives," so please buy a copy today and help support the global movement of music as an agent of social change!

http://playingfortheirlives.com/

Thinking Outside the Box

We invited Matt Kolb from Fieldston School in New York City to share a social skills project with the children at DeBridge School in Waithaka. Matt used an identity box project to get students to think about the kind of people they are, and list their “inside” and “outside” characteristics on the inside and outside of the boxes. The project ended in a presentation by the children to their peers. 

This project was perfect for children who struggle to interact with adults on a peer-to-peer level and/or have difficulty expressing themselves. This project was able to help students increase their confidence and self-awareness, which is likely to improve their musical performance capabilities. 

We are very grateful to Fieldston School for their generous donations of instruments to us over the years, and for loaning us Matt Kolb and the work he did with our children in our Waithaka location!

Expanding leadership skills in Juja

One of the aspects of music education that we use extensively in our classes is leadership. If you learn two notes, you can teach those notes to someone who does not know those two notes! Here, our Juja students are in action, leading a group violin class:

Youth Orchestra of the Americas Partnership

El Sistema Kenya meets the YOA Orchestra of the Americas! This month we welcome Global Leader, Kate Maloney, who is helping us expand our teaching practices in Juja and Waithaka!

L-R: Brenda, Bernadette, Mumbi, Kate, Karis

Kate working with one of our students at Tegemeza

New location in Waithaka

More growth for El Sistema Kenya as violin and viola lessons take off in Waithaka-Kawangware at the Tegemeza school! Form 2 and 3 students in our newest location join the ESK family, showing both excitement and great potential as the team looks forward to continued progress.