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For classical music, this is about as far from the proverbial ‘ivory tower’ as you can get: the Venezuelan El 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 street culture of drugs and violence. That’s why JA Abreu, the Sistema’s founder, insists that his is first and foremost a social project. The fact that it also produced some of the most exciting youth orchestras in the world and a few charismatic stars into the bargain is just a bonus. 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.