Alan Yentob’s Imagine report on the Simon Bolivar Venezuelan Youth Orchestra showed how music can inspire and transform the lives of young people. The orchestra is the product of the Fundación del Estado para el Sistema de Orquestas Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela – El Sistema –  founded in 1975 by the musician and economist Jose Antonio Abreu to deal with poverty and crime by offering children from shanty towns an alternative focus for their energies and dreams.

In a world of transient possessions they gave each child an instrument, something they could call their own, a possession they prized. In return they demanded their unswerving commitment to train for the orchestra and learn how to play the instruments to professional standard. The children had to fit their education, families and social lives around the music. The music came first, everything else was secondary. One father explained how difficult this was for their family to accept, but that his son learned to cope with fitting in his schoolwork even though he had less time, whilst the family learned to cope with not seeing him for days or weeks at a time when he was away with the orchestra.

Gustavo Dudamel, 27-year-old conductor of the orchestra and soon to be music director of the LA Philharmonic is a shining example of their success. He was given a violin at the age of ten, and found himself conducting his orchestra ‘as a bit of a joke’ one day at rehearsals when their usual conductor was late. He was a natural, said the conductor and since the age of 12, that is what he has been doing; appearing last year at the BBC Proms at the Albert Hall to an awed and delighted audience.

There are 200 orchestras nationally, comprising 270,000 children and the 15,000 teachers are the products of the same impressive system. The vision of El Sistema is quite different to the vision outlined in the British government’s Music Manifesto. In the latter, the aim is to accommodate the interests, abilities and diversity of the children.

Our vision is simple. We want to build pathways for progression in music so that all young people, whatever their background or abilities, have access to a rich and diverse range of musical experiences, within and outside school. We want to create opportunities for young people to pursue their interest wherever it takes them and to develop their talents to the full.

El Sistema is rather more challenging. They take children from varied backgrounds and abilities and force them through a system that demands discipline and application, and the rewards have been inspiring. If British projects are to emulate this success, it’s vital that we understand what makes it. A delegation from Scotland visited Venezuela and was inspired by what they saw. They hoped they too could transform the lives of children in a run-down part of Stirling. They have set up the project in Scotland – only instead of calling it something like El Sistema, they call it ‘The Big Noise’. I fear they have missed the point.