Franka Verhagen

After graduating at the Maastricht Conservatory in 1985, I found myself at the start of a journey of lifelong learning and research. In Venezuela where I lived and worked for 33 years, I received many opportunities and gained a broad experience.

In addition to my activities as a performing artist, I have been teaching at the Universidad Nacional Experimental de las Artes in Caracas for 23 years as a guitar major and as an ear training teacher. For the latter, I devised my own strategies to make ear training and music analysis more accessible to students.
As study leader I participated in designing and shaping innovative procedures fornaccreditation of experience and knowledge.

In “El Sistema”, I started to teach at several “núcleos” since my arrival in 1986. “El Sistema” offered the opportunity in 2010, to create a study program for young teachers and conductors based on the andragogic principle. As part of this program, I
led an extensive administrative and academic team for 9 years and trained over 1200 musicians with them.

After returning to Europe in 2019, I work in Gothenburg, Sweden, as CEO of the young “NonProfit” Organization Dream Orchestra (DO), on social issues such as integration, diversity, refugee issues, racism, segregation and tolerance. In this position I
contributes to the design of the business plan and the development of the brand strategy. I am responsible for fundraising, project management and leading a team of teachers, staff and volunteers.

For the design of the book on the learning model that I published together with the founder, Ron Davis Alvarez, I delved into the topic of “Safeguarding” of children and vulnerable young adults and put together a protection policy for the organization. At
our website www.dreamorchestra.se, the two books that I have written for DO will be available in september 2023.