Understanding the cultural value of 'In Harmony-Sistema England'

近年来，年轻人参与艺术活动的价值一直备受争议。自20世纪90年代末以来，“补贴革命”（Elliott 1997）在英国赋予了以青年为基础的参与性艺术活动更大的地位，在此之后，有关此类活动价值的问题，以及理解其结果的最合适方式，已经从许多方面提出（例如，Belfiore， 2002年，2004年；Merli 2002年；Belfiore和Bennett 2008年，Galloway 2009年）。事实上，对于许多评论家来说，越来越多的强调评估和评估被称为年轻人艺术参与的“工具”结果，可能会忽视对大多数参与者来说，参与性接触的真正方面是什么，这些方面有助于激励他们首先参与：它作为艺术活动的“内在”价值。该项目旨在促进最近的辩论，敦促需要超越“工具”与“内在”的僵局（Knell & Taylor 2011），通过探索利益相关者理解文化价值的方式，参与目前在英格兰发展的一项新颖的参与式青年关注和音乐为基础的倡议：在英国和谐系统。我们对这一倡议的选择提供了一个特别有趣的探索案例，因为大多数将音乐与社会公益形式联系起来的尝试都采用了流行音乐形式（作为吸引与他们一起工作的弱势年轻人的努力的一部分），在和声系统英国，从委内瑞拉非常成功的El Sistema倡议中汲取灵感，采用管弦乐模式，并使用古典音乐的“高级艺术”形式吸引年轻人。虽然El Sistema模型明确地将音乐活动的内在维度作为一种促进参与个人成长和发展的手段，但它这样做的目的是有意识地产生溢出效应，这种效应在其他地方被称为“乐器”结果的水平上。然而，在整个项目活动中，优先考虑的是那些明确的艺术目标和成就，这些目标和成就有助于激励年轻人的参与。虽然该计划在委内瑞拉取得了巨大的成就，但在学术界，对于该计划的变革组成部分，以及参与者对该计划文化层面的评估如何转化为其他类型（更广泛）的影响，人们仍然知之甚少。鉴于目前不同形式的In Harmony- sistema England所涉及的不同交付模式和项目合作关系，以及不同参与者和利益相关者所带来的重要的不同当地文化条件和对文化价值的主观理解，本项目将通过探索位于英格兰各地的三个不同的In Harmony项目来解决上述问题。

The value of young people's participation in arts activity has been hotly debated over recent years. Following the 'subsidy revolution' (Elliott 1997), which granted youth-based participatory arts activities greater prominence in the UK since the late 1990s, questions about the value of such activities, and the most appropriate ways of understanding their outcomes, have been raised from a number of quarters (see, e.g., Belfiore, 2002, 2004; Merli 2002; Belfiore and Bennett 2008, Galloway 2009). Indeed, for many commentators, the growing emphasis on assessing and evaluating what have been termed the 'instrumental' outcomes of young people's arts participation risk ignoring what are, for most participants, the very aspects of the participatory encounter which serve to motivate them to engage in the first place: its 'intrinsic' value as arts activity.This project seeks to contribute to recent debates urging the need to transcend the 'instrumental' vs 'intrinsic' impasse (Knell & Taylor 2011) by exploring the ways in which cultural value is understood by stakeholders involved in one novel participatory youth-focussed and music-based initiative currently developing in England: In Harmony-Sistema England. Our choice of this initiative offers a particularly fascinating case for exploration because, where most attempts to link music to forms of social good have employed popular music forms (as part of an effort to appeal to the disadvantaged young people with whom they work), In Harmony-Sistema England, taking its lead from the highly successful Venezuelan El Sistema initiative, adopts an orchestral model and engages young people using the 'high art' form of classical music. While the El Sistema model explicitly invokes the intrinsic dimensions of musical activity as a means of engendering growth and development in participating individuals, it does so with the conscious intention of generating spill-over effects which register at the level of what have been elsewhere termed 'instrumental' outcomes. Yet prioritised throughout projects' activities are those explicitly artistic goals and achievements which serve to motivate young people's participation. While the project has seen great achievements in Venezuela, it remains the case that relatively little is understood, within scholarly circles, about the transformative components of the programme and the ways in which participants' valuation of the cultural dimensions of the project translate into other kinds of (broader) effects.In recognition of the different models of delivery and project partnership currently involved in the different incarnations of In Harmony-Sistema England, as well as the importantly differing local cultural conditions and subjective understandings of cultural value brought by different participants and stakeholders, this project will engage with the concerns sketched above by exploring three different In Harmony projects, located across England.