L’Hospitalet is a city located in the south-west of Barcelona. It has grown in three waves of migration and it is now Catalonia’s second largest city. With a population of 260 000 inhabitants, 28% of which are from a migrant background, the city faces several challenges and divides in social, economic and physical terms.
The diversity of the people that over the years have come here also for its proximity to Barcelona has made the city more diverse, but also more difficult in terms of cohesion among the different backgrounds that live and work here. Like many areas at the outskirts of great metropolitan areas, the city increasingly suffers from social disparities, high poverty rates and ethnic segregation.
Before 2005, L’Hospitalet was one of the cities in Europe with the poorest offer in public musical education. The only private music school had 147 students, out of a population of 260 000 inhabitants. Furthermore, according to a survey carried out by the Barcelona Provincial Council, only 4% of the population of the Barcelona metropolitan area had any basic music education. Mostly, these were people stemming from higher socio-economic backgrounds with half of them possessing a higher education degree. These numbers plummeted even more in L’Hospitalet – that is to say, the study of music was an exclusive cultural activity linked to economic and cultural status.
Increased citizens’ demand for a municipal commitment to musical education made L’Hospitalet’s City Council assess what type of institution was needed: a model that was questioned in the immediate environment and abandoned by the rest of Europe, or an institution that placed citizens at the centre and focused on artistic practice.
The municipality answered this demand, relying on a new model of an artistic centre that supposed a clear-cut policy of citizens’ participation in the realm of cultural and artistic expressions.
The public Music School and Arts Centre of L’Hospitalet (EMMCA) was created in 2005 with a triple commitment:
- to increase the number of people that practise performing arts in L’Hospitalet;
- to reach social sectors usually excluded from standardised artistic expressions;
- to use performing arts as a tool for social cohesion and academic success.
The local administration of L’Hospitalet uses EMMCA for cultural, as well as educational and social policies, and has a general scope to solve one of its main contemporary challenges: to bring together the community. This challenge, shared globally, is accentuated by the situation of the city and its population, where 28% of people are born abroad.
To achieve these goals, EMMCA provides education in music, drama and dance in its headquarters to 1000 students, but also develops activities abroad in different forms. Nine primary schools participate in a programme called Tandem, where 1200 students attend music, dance or drama education activities during school time. These schools are located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and are tagged as high complexity centres. The Tandem programme acts as a tool to offer opportunities for the artistic development of children with a migrant background, driving their academic successes and bridging the gap in relation to specialised institutions such as music, dance and drama schools. In addition to this, softer collaborations with other schools and institutions have been implemented (with occasional activities or different kinds of artistic and pedagogic advice).
During these almost 14 years, EMMCA has shown success in the initial set of objectives. First, the number of students and participants grows every year (2200 students and 3400 yearly participants) and the EMMCA groups and ensembles offer 300 performances per year, reaching an accumulated audience of 44 000 people. For the most part, the performances are related to public institutions and NGO activities. Networking is a strategic activity of this service. It includes vertical networking and collaborations with other administrations such as the Barcelona Provincial Council (Diputaci de Barcelona) and the Catalan Regional Government (Generalitat de Catalunya), which are both providing additional funds to the school. EMMCA also relies on the support of other regional and international institutions that advocate for cultural and educational policies such as the European Music School Union (EMU) and the Catalan Association of Music Schools (ACEM).
To sum up, the EMMCA is a public service with a huge community of artistic practitioners from all ages, neighbourhoods, social sectors and migrant origins. It is deeply rooted to the cultural and social life of the city, and it boosts the academic successes and social cohesion of the city. This best practice has been recognised and awarded repeatedly.