The Simon Bolivar Orchestra was a big hit at the Proms and has inspired the government to put money into a similar project, In Harmony, here.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families says that:

'In Harmony is inspired by the hugely successful Venezuelan project El Sistema and chaired by world-renowned cellist Julian Lloyd-Webber. Very young children from the most deprived parts of the country will be taught musical instruments by charismatic, high-quality music teachers. The programme encourages participation in music – in the form of the Symphony Orchestra – which can have huge personal benefits for the children involved, providing opportunities to grow and develop, both socially and musically. They will then be brought into full scale orchestras and encouraged to play live in front of audiences from an early age’.

There will be three pilot schemes in the most deprived areas of the country for which there is £3 million over three years. That’s about £333,333.333 recurring a year for each project - actually not a lot. These may be very deprived communities but it’s a very different deprivation from Venezuela. So can it work?

Sir Simon Rattle is sceptical: ‘I have the feeling that a culture that has so much and so many other distractions and so many more material things will not have the same chance of success. As the Venezuelan kids said to the audience here: ’This is not an important part of our lives, this is our lives’. Sir Simon wishes them well and so do we! We shall report on the start up of the project in our next issue.

This issue is full of goodies. There are new men on the block - Lincoln Abbotts takes over from the legendary Larry Westland at Music for Youth and Philip Flood has taken over at LSO Discovery St Luke’s. I talked to both of them about their ideas for the future.

Also, there is a new course - an MA in Choral Conducting - at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. I talked to Adrian Partington who is running it with Simon Halsey. The RWCMD is also planning a new exciting extension to the college (see News).

Not so new but not so well known is what’s happening in Rock around the country. Emma Coulthard tells us how the Cardiff Rock School (est. 1999) is developing to meet the challenges rock and pop presents to music services. Stephen Oates explains how the Warrington Music Collective (est. 2006) gives groups the opportunity to perform on a professional stage.

Meanwhile, the professionals, in this case the BBC Concert Orchestra and English National Opera through ENO Baylis have been working very successfully with primary schools. Peter Hayward and Teresa Deacon report.

Hester Cockcroft from Awards for Young Musicians reminds us how the financial support they are able to give the most talented students enables them to fulfil their dreams. And talking of talent, I had great pleasure in interviewing 16-year-old Tom Rose from Suffolk who was one of the three winners of the Junior section of the Guardian/BBC Proms Young Composers’ Competition with his work Moth Lamp. And, by the way, he has already written an award-winning Anthem of Remembrance, some orchestral and choral works, and is working on a song cycle for mezzo and piano, a song for counter tenor and piano, a trio for three clarinets, a string quartet and a wind quintet.

Two areas we have not covered before. Rebecca Spencer introduces Dalcroze: The Movement of Music and John Speyer, Director of Music in Detention, writes about the charity’s remarkable work to give immigration detainees a voice through music.

And, of course, we have our excellent reviewers and our Music Technology section which this issue has a fascinating piece by Lydia Machell, Director of Prima Vista Braille Music Services, who explains how Braille enables blind children to make music.

Peter Baker