Some 12,000 Venezuelan musicians performed Tchaikovsky's Slavic March on Saturday in an attempt to establish the Guinness World Record for "
the largest orchestra in the world
", the results of which will be announced in the coming days.
Musicians from Venezuela's National Youth Orchestra System, from across the country, gathered in the courtyard of the Venezuelan Military Academy in Caracas as night fell over the capital.
Nicknamed “
El Sistema
”, this public program, founded in 1975 by the late maestro José Antonio Abreu to make music education accessible to thousands of children from the working classes, has been reproduced in dozens of countries.
It is notably the birthplace of Gustavo Dudamel, musical director of the Paris Opera and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's work, composed in 1876 as a hymn intended to inspire Russian and Serbian soldiers in the war against Turkey, was the third of eight pieces played in the concert.
The largest orchestra in the world in pictures
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The previous record is Russian
Andrés David Ascanio, 34, conducted the 12-minute musical piece.
“
If a rope breaks, don't stop.
If you lose the score, keep going from memory, but don't stop
, ”asked the maestro before the end of the rehearsal to avoid putting the record in danger.
The event counted only on a small audience, among which were some dignitaries, including the vice-president of Venezuela Delcy Rodriguez, and 260 examiners of the cabinet KPMG, in charge of verifying the respect of the rules to obtain the record.
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Guinness will announce within the next ten days whether Venezuela has the largest orchestra in the world.
The current record was set in 2019 in St. Petersburg, Russia, by an orchestra of 8,097 musicians.
“
El Sistema
” had already gathered more than 10,000 musicians to pay tribute to Maestro Abreu when he died.
But it had been impossible to certify a record due to the deadlines and documentation requested by Guinness.
