Paris Youth Orchestra: Government-backed scheme introduces youth from deprived areas to classical music

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Europe

03:18

France is celebrating its annual Fete de la Musique, with free concerts in streets and town squares across the country. One of the ensembles playing in Paris is a youth orchestra. That's part of a government-backed scheme to introduce young people from deprived areas to classical music. Elena Casas reports from Paris.

Aissatou has been playing the clarinet since she was 8 years old - although when she started, she'd never heard of it.

AISSATOU DEMOS ORCHESTRA CLARINETIST "I didn't know what a clarinet was, there was a big box and a little box and I chose the big box, that was it!"

She's part of the Paris Philharmonic's Demos youth orchestra - which takes children from the city's deprived suburbs, selected by social workers, and teaches them a musical instrument.

AISSATOU DEMOS ORCHESTRA CLARINETIST "A lady mentioned this to my mum, and she brought us here."

Five million people live in France's multiethnic suburban housing estates - where 35 percent of under 30s are not in employment or education, and many complain of systematic discrimination in the job market.

ELENA CASAS PARIS "The Paris Philharmonic is in a new building on the edge of Paris, right on the ring road that separates the city from its suburbs - and the institution aims to bring the suburbs inside the building."

LAURENT BEL DIRECTOR OF THE PARIS PHILHARMONIC "A lot of children are not integrated and are essentially condemned to fail - we have to reverse that dynamic. So the main aim of the orchestra is to create confidence in themselves, help them start to like themselves, and we see that when they do, their relationship with their studies changes, and so do their academic results."

Emmanuel Macron's government is convinced music does make a difference - it recently doubled the project's public funding, meaning 70 youth orchestras will be created in deprived areas across the country, based on this model.

Many of these children have never heard classical music before they start the programme - the orchestra deliberately starts with seven or eight year olds, aiming to win them over before they get the idea that classical music isn't cool.

DEBORA WALDMAN CONDUCTOR OF THE DEMOS ORCHESTRA "I hope this experience will always give them a relationship with classical music, that it will be a strong memory that they'll want to come back to, whether as musicians or as spectators."

The Philharmonic believes that opening up the world of culture like this has benefits far beyond the individual participants - by helping them feel more connected to French society.

LAURENT BEL DIRECTOR OF THE PARIS PHILHARMONIC "The question of the deprived suburbs is really about the meaning of life - what is it, if I feel cut off from the aspirations of society, if I don't recognise myself in them? Over the course of time, it's that feeling that allows extremist ideas to take root."

The young musicians have more immediate worries, though - this is their last rehearsal before they take the stage for a sold out series of concerts.

Elena Casas, CGTN, Paris.