‘Tchaikovsky is ours:’ the practice of minor music from the barrios of Venezuela

How do young people living in social exclusion in Venezuela negotiate their deep personal attachment to classical music and the genre’s association with dominant European culture? I approach this topic through my ethnographic fieldwork with young musicians who are members of Venezuela’s nation-wide classical music program El Sistema. The majority of these musicians are from the lower social classes in an unequal society deeply divided along the …