El Sistema: a subjectivity of time discipline

Resumo

The creation of a youth symphony orchestra by the economist, former politician and passionate music practitioner José Antonio Abreu, in the late seventies, has evolved into a social initiative overwhelmingly acclaimed by the general public and legitimated by a large number of world institutional powers that has more recently spread to many other parts of the globe. El Sistema, as it is commonly known, seeks to socially include poor communities around the world by promoting music education focused on the experience of symphonic performance. This article critically approaches the Venezuelan program by discussing the subjectivities surrounding the symphony orchestra that made it symbolcally representative of the ideals of discipline and productivity according to the social rationality of industrial capitalism. Moreover, it defends the preponderant role of the modern construct of linear time, fundamental for such rationality, in the disciplining of intuition in symphonic performance.