2013 Salzburg Fest­iv­al:

The White Hands Choir is part of the El Sis­tema Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion Pro­gram, which was foun­ded in 1995 in or­der to in­teg­rate people with han­di­caps in­to so­ci­ety more fully through mu­sic. Here, chil­dren with and without han­di­caps meet and en­joy play­ing to­geth­er. The idea of unit­ing chil­dren with phys­ic­al and men­tal han­di­caps, chil­dren with hear­ing dif­fi­culties, and even deaf-mute chil­dren in one chor­us was born in 1999.

The un­usu­al en­semble is di­vided in­to two groups: chil­dren with move­ment, visu­al and cog­nit­ive dis­orders form the ac­tu­al chor­us.

Their singing is trans­formed by the oth­er group, chil­dren with im­paired hear­ing, mute or deaf-mute chil­dren, in­to an ex­press­ive cho­reo­graphy of flow­ing hand move­ments, their hands clad in white or col­oured gloves.

World-fam­ous con­duct­ors like Si­mon Rattle and Clau­dio Ab­bado have been deeply im­pressed by these chil­dren. Today, twelve such chor­uses ex­ist in Venezuela. Fol­low­ing the in­vit­a­tion from the Salzburg Fest­iv­al, the White Hands Choir travels abroad for the first time to present two live con­certs at the Moz­ar­teum Found­a­tion. For the or­gan­izers in Venezuela and Salzburg, but most im­port­antly for the han­di­capped chil­dren and teen­agers, this presents an enorm­ous chal­lenge.

Coro de Manos Blan­cas
Nay­beth García, chor­us mas­ter
Lu­is Chinchilla, con­duct­or