“‘A lot of us are upset that Chávez has taken Sistema as his own child, and it’s not,’ said Gabriela Montero, a Venezuelan pianist with an international career who has written a piece, ‘Ex Patria,’ denouncing the Chávez government and the fraying of civil society here. ‘It’s almost like he’s stolen something that we lived with for the past 40 years and dirtied it with his presence.'”