Jose Antonio Abreu, at 78, creator of Venezuelan youth orchestras, teacher

Jose Antonio Abreu, the Venezuelan government economist turned musical educator who created a network of youth orchestras that has been replicated in dozens of countries around the world, died Saturday. He was 78.

His death was announced by the newspaper El Universal, where his brother Jesus Abreu is president.

No cause was given, but Mr. Abreu had been known to be battling several illnesses ever since he retired from El Sistema, as the musical education program is known, a few years ago.

Mr. Abreu was the teacher to generations of Venezuelan classical music performers.

His most famous protege, Gustavo Dudamel, musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, tweeted a picture of the two Saturday dedicated to Mr. Abreu “with devoted love and eternal gratitude.”

President Nicolas Maduro also mourned the loss.

“The Venezuelan people that you so loved today are crying for you Maestro,” Maduro said in a message posted on social media along with a photo of the two at a meeting in the presidential palace in 2014.

“We are comforted by knowing that your legacy will remain alive in the hands and voices of the children of the youth orchestras.”

Born in the western city of Valera in 1939, El Maestro, as Mr. Abreu was almost universally known in Venezuela, studied music from an early age.

But he initially put his artistic aspirations on hold to become an economist, teaching at two universities in Caracas, and later entering politics.

Well into his 30s in 1975, he formed a small orchestra of a dozen young musicians that would become the seed for El Sistema.

Four decades later, the government-financed program claims to currently put 1 million Venezuelan children in contact with classical music through a network of hundreds of youth choirs, orchestras and music centers spread across the country.

Internationally, its teaching model has spread to more than 60 countries, while its marquee Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra is a fixture in top-flight concert halls from New York to London.

But more recently the sterling reputations of the institution — and Mr. Abreu — have taken a hit as a result of the program’s close ties to Maduro, whose socialist administration has been accused of undermining Venezuela’s democracy.