The Royal Festival Hall has never seen anything quite like it: thousands swarming through its doors to listen to a rehearsal — and one by an amateur orchestra at that. Yet as its fanatical supporters would testify, the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra (SBYO) is not just another group of part-timers and the session yesterday morning was not just any rehearsal.

This was the cultural equivalent of the adoring crowds who turn up to gawp at dazzling footballers of Barcelona or Manchester United on the training ground. The SBYO is the most exciting, most joyful, most exotic orchestra in the world today. YouTube footage of the euphoric Proms appearance that crowned their last visit to Britain two years ago has been viewed more than a million times.

The rehearsal marked the opening of a five-day residency on the South Bank. Tickets for the main events — last night’s performance of Bartók and Tchaikovsky and a romp through Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and various Latin American works on Saturday — sold out ten months ago. One resold on eBay for more than £400.

A large part of the attraction is their pioneering social role. The orchestra is the standard bearer for El Sistema (The System), a radical scheme that has, over 34 years, used classical music tuition to build the self-confidence, skills and discipline of more than 300,000 young Venezuelans, many of them from the grimmest, most dangerous barrios in their country. Similar programmes are being introduced across the Caribbean, Latin America and Europe, including at least four in Britain — in Stirling, Liverpool, Lambeth and Norwich.

Professor José Antonio Abreu, the economist who founded and oversees El Sistema’s network of 57 children’s orchestras and 125 youth orchestras, said before the rehearsal that it was “more than a system, it is an ideal and a principle and more than anything a social programme”. He is sure that his model will become a worldwide success story, taking disaffected, deprived youths out of a life of potential crime through hard work and artistic inspiration.

Sceptics wonder how successful the international programmes will be if other governments fail to match the £15 million annual funding that President Chávez of Venezuela pours into one of his country’s most appealing global brands. Dissenting voices question whether he is not using the teenagers of the SBYO as a propaganda tool in the West as he tightens his grip on power at home.

If these concerns bothered the rapt audience at the rehearsal it did not show. Young and old, they had come from Cornwall, Fife, Londonderry and even California. The 200 teenage and twenty-something musicians in T-shirts, jeans and trainers were applauded and whistled at every break.

When Gustavo Dudamel, their 28-year-old superstar conductor, sprang from the stage and ran through the stalls to assess the acoustics of his brass section, all decorum was abandoned as hundreds of camera phones recorded the moment. At the lunchbreak the stage was mobbed and Dudamel happily bounced babies on his knee and lifted children on to the podium so that they could try their hand at conducting.

Gillian Ury, 65, a school governor, was transfixed. “The energy that they create is fantastic. Instead of having kids in the street knifing each other, isn’t this what we need here?”

The intention behind the week is to reach out beyond the 5,000 who will fill the Festival Hall for the two main concerts. Both performances will be displayed on big screens in the venue’s ballroom and Sage Gateshead as well as broadcast on Classic FM.

There are three other concerts featuring members of the orchestra, in addition to three discussion forums on El Sistema, one of which will look at how to replicate its effect in Britain.

A further 2,500 people have booked the free tickets for another open rehearsal by the full orchestra this morning. In all, the Southbank Centre expects about 30,000 people to visit during the residency, 10,000 of them free and many of them new to classical music.

link by timesonline