Valeria Atella he always knew that music was the most valuable treasure he could have. He found in this art his purpose and his mission, the tool to generate social impact and the way to transcend as a person. Also an instrument to educate and transform lives. “What makes me happy the most is the look of the boys and the bond that is established with them. It is like my gift to the soul ”, she assures.
Valeria was born in Chascomús, where she still lives. Her first approach to music was through her grandfather and her bandoneon. After her came the study of piano and later the university, where she studied for a Bachelor of Music, with a specialization in Musicology. And when she was very young, she developed the school orchestra methodology with the creation of the first school orchestra in Chascomús, 25 years ago. Today she is an inescapable reference, conductor and also president of the SOIJAr Foundation (System of Children and Youth Orchestras of Argentina).
With a great sense of community, important goals and management skills, she recognizes herself as a dreamer, very demanding and persevering. Her life is marked by her multiple tasks and the family environment. She is married to a molecular biologist and has two children who follow in her musical footsteps.
“I enjoy the collective musical practice and I love seeing the process among the boys, feeling like partners, knowing that they are valuable, that they belong to a movement. It is part of our mission, ”he tells NEWS.
News: How did music come into your life?
Valeria Atella: My maternal grandfather sold jugs, but he also liked to play the bandoneon and I remember listening to him play. It was a moment of family reunion, music generated that unity. On the other hand, my mother was the director of a kindergarten for vulnerable communities and I was there all day. I would sneak out at nap time and go to the piano and play with the typewriter like it was a piano. My kindergarten and elementary school music teachers also left a beautiful mark on me.
News: What is music to you?
Atela: It is the most beautiful treasure that humanity has. It is something that each one can take and appropriate in the way they feel and it can mean something different for each one. Plus, it gives you emotional freedom. It is a personal treasure and to share.
News: How did it impact your life?
Atella: I always knew that my thing was music. I studied piano since I was little and later at the university I did a degree in Music with a specialty in Musicology, because I liked research.
News: How did you become an orchestra conductor?
Atella: In the second year of my degree, I found out that in Argentina there was interest in opening children’s and youth orchestras and that this program was inspired by the movement of children’s and youth orchestras that maestro José Antonio Abreu had created in Venezuela, from which Gustavo Dudamel emerged, who is today a world star. That Argentine program finally did not materialize, so I developed the school orchestra methodology and presented the project in the municipality of Chascomús, which was accepted. The first school orchestra was born there and that is how I began my role as director.
News: Is the director the one with the power?
Atella: No, it is not that I go up with the baton to direct everything. I do it from the position of educator, I feel like a teacher. In fact, I never agreed to direct any concert that wasn’t with my boys. I conducted the National Symphony but with my boys. In the school orchestra methodology we do not say that we are conductors but educators of orchestral practice.
News: What are you interested in transmitting to your students, beyond technique?
Atela: What keeps me awake is that we can all be part of something. Feeling that we are included in a proposal. Then find the richness of diversity, integrate, generate a new identity as part of a new community. And knowing that music allows us to match ourselves beyond our realities. That’s why when we started with this we started with a string orchestra because in my town there was nothing like that. The most important thing is promotion. that music challenges us all the time to be the best version of ourselves. Because it is art and art connects us with beauty and beauty requires that care of a treasure. That is linked to transcendence and human promotion.
News: What did you learn from this experience?
Atella: That we are essentially the same, beyond our specific situations, and magically different. And to find wealth and learning from both.
News: How is your personal life? Is she married, does she have children?
Atella: My life goes through my work and my house. The same year that Maestro Abreu invited me to learn about the system in Venezuela and to co-build with him the system of children’s and youth orchestras in Argentina, I met who my husband is today. He is a scientist, a doctor in Molecular Biology, he belongs to another world, and we have two children: Augusto (12) and Lautaro (14).
News: Do your children participate in orchestras?
Atella: My children grew up in the midst of all this, for them the orchestra is their second home. In fact, Lautaro is in the school choir and Augusto is in an experiment that we are doing with symphonic piano.
News: What is the mission, the purpose of the school orchestra?
Atella: The Chascomús school orchestra emerged 25 years ago, it was the first application of this methodology, and its mission is education through music as an instrument. It is a school of life for the boys, where each one creates his personal project with a sense of community. We work on three axes: educational, social and cultural. The idea is to develop skills for life. Along the way many choose music professionally as teachers and instrumentalists. In fact, we created a professional orchestra, the first professional of this movement in the country. Actually, our purpose is that the boys can recognize their own strengths and visualize their own weaknesses so that they can have the freedom and the tools to create a personal project with a sense of community.
News: Who can participate?
Atella: This methodology seeks the most diverse reflection of the community possible. We try to get kids from different neighborhoods, schools, soup kitchens, homes to participate, we even go looking for them. So that those children are a new opportunity for the community. Those who are not going to dedicate themselves to music are up to 21 years of age and those who want specific training are up to 25, and we leave them prepared to compete in a professional orchestra.
News: How many school orchestras are there in Chascomús?
Atella: At this moment, we have more than ten between orchestras, choirs and ensembles. For example, the orchestra on the first day, where we go to a neighborhood, we settle in a square with the instruments and we go with a megaphone and touring the houses inviting the kids to come to the square and come play. Thus, children who have never played an instrument live the experience of doing their first concert. Another example is the pre-children’s orchestra with children from three to six years old.
News: Over the years the school orchestra methodology was replicated in different parts of the country.
Atella: Yes, it was replicated in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Córdoba, Santa Cruz and Entre Ríos, among other places. And there are many more that are children’s and youth orchestras.
News: You also chair the SOIJar Foundation
Atella: Yes, the foundation arose in 2005 at the initiative of maestro Abreu and its mission is to provide pedagogical and musical training to the different actors in the orchestra movement: children, educators, their references, authorities who want to develop this type of proposal. We have permanent programs and a diploma in school orchestra methodology in agreement with the National University of San Martín. We also have the Argentine children’s orchestra and the Argentine youth orchestra, a bank of traveling instruments and thus various programs. Until now we have accompanied the birth and development of 284 musical programs throughout the country.
News: Added to this is the festival that takes place once a year in Chascomús.
Atella: Yes, it is the largest program that the Foundation has, with little seeds from all the other programs and the largest number of children and teachers participate. It is the general festival in Chascomús, which is the national capital of children’s and youth orchestras. In February we held the seventh edition.
News: Are you aware of the value of your life purpose, the impact it generates on so many people?
Atela: I am happy more than conscious. The most beautiful thing that can happen to us is to have a purpose and a purpose that transcends us as people, that is beyond our limited finiteness.
