Scotland's version of a revolutionary youth music scheme in Venezuela, El Sistema, will begin with a series of summer schools this year on a deprived housing scheme.
Yesterday, as Dr Samuel Moncada, the ambassador of the South American country, visited Stirling to learn more about Scotland's plans for its own "El Sistema", more details emerged of the pilot project in the Raploch area of the city.
The revolutionary system of youth orchestras in Venezuela has, over the past 30 years, been used to change the lives of more than 400,000 children from from the slums, or barrios, of the South American country, not only teaching children from the ages of eight to 18 how to play classical music with free instruments, but also giving them a sense of "hope and accomplishment".
Six professional musicians are to be hired to spearhead the system in Raploch. They will be taught about the Venezuelan model in a visit to the country's capital, Caracas, before returning to Stirling to begin summer schools in June for children in the Primary 1 to 3 age bracket.
Once children go back to school, the scheme will continue, for Primary 1 to 4 children, for the rest of the academic year.
Raploch is the pilot project in the scheme - currently just called Sistema Scotland - which will then, its organisers hope, spread throughout the country over the next 10 years, beginning its expansion, it is thought, to Glasgow and Aberdeen.
The headquarters of what will become the Raploch youth orchestra are to be based in a small building at the centre of the estate, on Drip Road.
Sistema Scotland, which is to be given a punchier name in May, has gathered enough funding to finance its first year, although it has yet to receive any official backing from the Scottish Government: in England, the Department of Culture has put aside £2m to a three-year scheme based on the Venezuelan model which will focus on three impoverished areas south of the border.
Dr Moncada said he had no doubt the Venezuelan scheme could work in Scotland, and said he was fascinated by the regeneration projects in Raploch, an estate which has long been associated with deprivation.
"We can learn lessons, too," he said, speaking at the Raploch Community Campus. "It is interesting to see how the local authorities and communities are inviting the private sector to be part of regeneration: you would normally think private companies are only thinking for themselves.
"Our Sistema is a special project because the children are not expected to go on to be classical musicians: it is a musical project, but it's a social project.
"Although Venezuela and Stirling are different places, the aspirations of the people are the same, and music is for everyone. It is about Scottish youth playing good music, playing it well, and having self-esteem because of it. I have no doubt it will work."
Councillor John Hendry, who has represented Raploch since the late 1980s, said he thinks the project will "fly" in the area.
"Obviously you cannot compare the conditions in Scotland to those in Venezuela, but I think we can develop the social needs of the community through this system of music," he said.
Nicola Killean, the former head of Youth Music UK in Scotland, is the director and chief executive of Sistema Scotland, and yesterday she said she was excited the project, instigated by Dr Richard Holloway more than two years ago, is finally moving from the page to the verge of reality.
El Sistema was set up in Venezuela more than 30 years ago. There are now more than 100 youth orchestras, and it has produced stars such as 24-year-old maestro Gustavo Dudamel, who performed at the Edinburgh International Festival last year, the Proms in London and is now a conductor at the LA Philharmonic.
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