The Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel are in Turkey for the first time. Their four-day visit, much anticipated by the Turkish, includes several concerts and a discussion panel.

The Turkish leg of the Festival tour kicked off with a concert at Galata square that featured two El Sistema ensembles, the Caracas Brass Ensemble and the Atalaya Percussion Ensemble, on August 7.

Their first performance at the Halic Congress Center was preceded by a discussion panel at the Marmara Hotel in Taksim. José Antonio Abreu and several other representatives of the Turkish classical music scene talked about implementing El Sistema in Turkey, and set the bases for the academic and musical exchange between the two nations. Abreu also announced the start of a collaboration project with a Turkish NGO that enforces traditional music values among children and teenagers from low-income families, much like the Alma Llanera Folk Music Programme in Venezuela.

On August 8, Gustavo Dudamel raised his baton to lead the El Sistema’s flagship orchestra in its debut concert in Turkish soil. The 170-strong orchestra played Tchaikovsky’s works after Shakespeare (Hamlet, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet) and Francesca da Rimini.

The Festival tour will close with another performance at the Halic Congress Center on August 9. The program includes Maurice Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, Evencio Castellanos' Santa Cruz de Pacairigua, Carlos Chávez’s Symphony No. 2 “Indian Symphony”, and Stravinsky’s The Firebird (1919 version).