A Quiet Revolution in the Concert Hall

The Venezuelan sistema offers intensive, 6-days-a-week orchestral training to children and adolescents, mostly in poor city neighbourhoods.

But the aim is not to produce virtuosos. The main purpose of the sistema is to give children's lives focus, discipline and a safe environment away from the street culture of drugs and violence.

That's why JA Abreu, the sistema's founder, insists that it is first and foremost a social project.

The fact that it has also produced some of the most exciting youth orchestras in the world and a few charismatic stars is just a bonus.

Another chance to hear the programme in which Juan Carlos Jaramillo travels to Venezuela to experience this musical revolution at first hand and to hear testimonies of the young people whose lives have been radically transformed by it.

Next week, El Sistema Goes Global.

First broadcast April 24 2009