In Harmony is England's answer to Venezuela's El Sistema, bringing instrumental learning to young people in deprived areas of the country. Children as young as four will have instrumental lessons and musicianship classes, leading to the formation of children's orchestras.
More importantly, In Harmony aims to nurture children's aspirations, self-esteem, creativity, commitment and teamwork.
Three initial projects have been announced, in London, Liverpool and Norwich. Brendon Le Page tells us about his quest to bring more music to young Londoners.
"It's going to be a massive challenge," says Brendon Le Page, head of Lambeth Music Service and the man leading London's In Harmony project. But it's not a challenge he's shying away from.
"My aim in Lambeth is to offer a long experience of music for every child. I'm always looking for ways in which we can reach more children, especially those children who don't normally access music education on their own but need an opportunity."
The Lambeth project will be based on the Lansdowne Green Estate in Stockwell. "There are no gangs on this estate," says Brendon, "but estates within a hundred yards are divided into reds and blues, so that's kind of issue we're dealing with.
"We had a prior relationship with the estate so it seemed like an automatic fit - they were very keen on the idea. We've had very enthusiastic support from the people we canvassed, but even then, there are lots of sceptical people, saying: Why is there so much money? What's in it for us? Is it just another government thing that's going to come and go? So there's a bit of work we have to do to convince them, but their suspicions are unfounded."
In addition to being based at Lansdowne Green, Lambeth's In Harmony project will also be working in the surrounding schools and by March 2011 they're hoping to reach 300-400 children. "We'll start teaching in April, in two cohorts," says Brendon. "We're going to start a younger group on a preparatory phase and an older group of kids directly on an instrumental phase.
"By the end of the first phase the younger group will have got to the stage the older kids are at now, and the older kids will be three years ahead, so in three years' time we'll have a kind of six-year process in place."
Lambeth Music Service is working with London's Southbank Centre, taking advantage of the world-class performers visiting the venue, its resident artists and the centre's established learning and participation department, ensuring there will be numerous inspiring performance and composition opportunities, as well as the instrumental tuition, musicianship classes, holiday music courses and children's orchestra.
Venezuela's Simon Bolivar Orchestra, the product of El Sistema, are scheduled to perform at the Southbank in April, which should serve as an inspiring launch to the project. "We've been working a little bit with the mayor's office to make that into an event," says Brendon.
"The mayor [Boris Johnson] is pretty interested in what we're doing, so we're looking forward to working with him. On a political level it's nice that we can have both a Labour government and Conservative politicians embracing the project."
It's going to take a lot of hard work but Brendon knows it's worth it. "I've watched the Wider Opportunities programmes that we've run around the country, especially Croydon's Sound Start programme, which was taken up by around 30 music services in the UK. From the anecdotal evidence, the non-musical impact it had on children, the class as a team and even their families was huge.
"It's great to have the opportunity and the funding in a contained project to get the real hard evidence for what we all believe, which is that music is necessary for social interaction, that music is necessary for life."