Música 100x35: youth orchestras and choirs

It is a non-profit public corporation created by statute in 2012 and placed under the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, to build a coordinated system of youth and children’s orchestras and choirs across the island, including Vieques and Culebra. The Act sets its mission — mass access for children and youth, especially those of low income — makes the Conservatory the governing body, orders the Office of Management and Budget to appropriate funds to it every year separately, and details what that money may be spent on, musical instruments included.

Article 3 directs the Programme at Puerto Rican children and youth, especially those of low income, and extends its coverage across the island of Puerto Rico and to the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra. That is all the Act says about who takes part. It sets no minimum or maximum age, does not define what counts as low income or set an income threshold, describes no audition or aptitude test, mentions no municipal residence requirement, and requires no prior musical knowledge. The admission criteria do not come from this text: they must be requested from the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, which is the governing body, and we do not invent them.

• The Programme is created as a public corporation with independent legal personality and non-profit, attached to the Corporation for the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music (Article 2).Verified against the official source
• Its mission is to give mass access to Puerto Rican children and youth, especially those of low income (Article 3).Verified against the official source
• Coverage reaches across the island of Puerto Rico and the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra (Article 3).Verified against the official source
• The Corporation for the Conservatory of Music is the governing body; its Board of Directors governs and supervises operations and the Conservatory’s Rector is the chief executive officer (Article 4).Verified against the official source
• The Office of Management and Budget must appropriate funds annually for the Programme’s operations, separately from the appropriation the Conservatory Corporation receives (Article 6).Verified against the official source

• The section on the Programme’s operations that the Conservatory Corporation adds to its annual report, with the same information its enabling act requires about the Conservatory (Article 5).
• When the Government conveys immovable property to the System, the certification issued by the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works with the description of the property and the note of its inscription in the property registry (Article 7).

1. 1

   Step 1: What Música 100x35 is and who it sits under

   Article 2 creates a public corporation, with independent legal personality and non-profit, to be known as the Música 100x35 Programme: System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Puerto Rico, attached to the Corporation for the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. The declared purpose is to contribute to and optimise the education and expression of musical culture and its development. It is not an office inside the Conservatory nor an administrative project: it is a public corporation of its own, hanging from the Conservatory.

2. 2

   Step 2: The mission, in the Act’s own words

   Article 3 is unusually concrete. It says the Programme “shall promote social rescue and development through music” and that “its mission shall be to give mass access to Puerto Rican children and youth, especially those of low income, turning music into an instrument to motivate, dignify, unite and progress.” And it adds that, besides social rescue and prevention, it proposes to create a coordinated system of musical formation covering needs across the island of Puerto Rico and the island municipalities of Vieques and Culebra, under the Conservatory of Music’s apex, serving as a talent bank to nourish the country’s musical life in all musical genres. That “all genres” is in the text: it is not limited to classical music.

3. 3

   Step 3: Who directs it

   Article 4 allocates it unambiguously. The Corporation for the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music is the governing body. The Conservatory’s Board of Directors governs and supervises the Programme’s operations. And the Conservatory’s Rector is the chief executive officer. There is no board of its own and no executive director of its own: the Act places the Programme’s direction in the same hands that direct the Conservatory. Article 9 completes the picture by authorising the Corporation to provide the Programme with office space, equipment, technical and professional personnel or any other help or service it deems necessary.

4. 4

   Step 4: Where the money comes from and what it may be spent on

   Article 6 orders the Office of Management and Budget to appropriate funds annually for the Programme’s operations, and specifies that this annual appropriation shall be made separately from the one the Conservatory Corporation receives for its own operations. As the initial appropriation for fiscal year 2012-13, OMB was to transfer one million dollars, unless some other Government entity provided the financing. It also orders OMB to create, within the Conservatory’s budget, the subsidiary programme structure to segregate and separate those funds. The Programme may receive donations in cash, in kind and of movable and immovable property from public or private entities without limitation of any class or kind. Article 7 places the money under the Conservatory Corporation’s custody, which establishes the regulation to administer and account for it, and lists what it goes to: administrative and teaching expenses, musical instruments, teaching materials, and travel and incidental expenses for preparing the groups’ official performances inside and outside Puerto Rico. That million dollars was the initial 2012-13 appropriation; it does not describe today’s budget and we do not present it as such.

5. 5

   Step 5: The five sources of resources, and the immovable-property rule

   Article 7 enumerates where the resources come from. (a) The appropriations the Legislative Assembly makes annually. (b) Donations from companies, groups, non-profit institutions, partnerships and private-sector corporate entities, private citizens, and federal, state and municipal governmental entities. (c) The interest generated by investments of the Programme’s money. (d) Transfers of movable or immovable property authorised by the Governor by executive order. (e) And a concrete registry rule: when the Government must convey immovable property to the System, the conveyance shall be by a certification issued by the Secretary of Transportation and Public Works in the Government’s name and representation, with the description of the property and the note of its inscription in the property registry; the property registrars must take note of that certification to inscribe title in favour of the transferee.

6. 6

   Step 6: How it accounts for itself

   Article 5 orders the Conservatory Corporation to add a section to the annual report its enabling act, Act No. 77 of 30 May 1980, already requires of it, reporting on the Programme’s operations including the same information that act requires about the Conservatory. That is, the Programme files no separate report: it travels inside the Conservatory’s annual report, at the same level of detail. Article 8 adds that this Act’s provisions shall be implemented in harmony with that same Act No. 77 of 1980.

7. 7

   Step 7: How a child enrols: the Act does not say

   We say it plainly because it is the real question. Act 94-2012 publishes no minimum or maximum age — it says “children and youth” and nothing numerical — does not define what counts as low income or set an income threshold, describes no audition or aptitude test, sets no enrolment period, lists no documents, names no locations or núcleos, gives no addresses, telephones or portals, and sets no term for anything. Nor do we read “mass access” or “non-profit” as a declaration that participation is free for the family: they are the Programme’s mission and corporate form, not its price, and we will not assert the latter from the former. To enrol you must ask the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, which is the governing body.

Before the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. Act 94-2012 makes the Corporation for the Conservatory the Programme’s governing body, its Board of Directors the governor and supervisor of operations, and the Conservatory’s Rector the chief executive officer; the Programme’s money is also under that Corporation’s custody, and it establishes the regulation to administer it. The Act publishes no addresses, telephones, forms or portals for the Programme or its groups, and we do not guess government internet addresses.

• Reading “mass access” or “non-profit” as meaning participation is free: the Act sets no cost at all for the family.
• Looking in the Act for participants’ ages: it says “children and youth” and gives no number.
• Assuming there is a defined income threshold: the Act says “especially those of low income” and does not define it.
• Believing it is classical music only: Article 3 says the system serves as a talent bank to nourish the country’s musical life in all musical genres.
• Thinking Vieques and Culebra are left out: Article 3 expressly names them within the coverage.
• Looking for a board or executive director of its own: the Conservatory’s Board of Directors governs and the Conservatory’s Rector is the chief executive officer.
• Citing the million dollars as the current budget: it was the initial fiscal year 2012-13 appropriation.
• Believing the Programme’s budget comes from the same pocket as the Conservatory’s: Article 6 orders the annual appropriation to be separate and OMB to create a subsidiary programme structure to segregate the funds.
• Expecting a separate annual report: Article 5 puts the Programme’s section inside the Conservatory Corporation’s annual report.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Educación de Puerto Rico

  Educación

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov