The Big Concert

Hello and welcome to highlights of a very special concert,

featuring the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra,

recorded here in Stirling.

The concert, which will be conducted by the international maestro,

Gustavo Dudamel, represents musical history,

as it's set in the heart of the Raploch community,

that's gone through some tough times.

Tonight's concert is a celebration of how music

can transform lives.

It was four years ago that Big Noise became the first branch

of El Sistema in the UK. It's a visionary

Venezuelan music scheme that improves the quality of life

for children by immersing them in music making from an early age.

It's also the project that nurtured

the musicians of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra

and its most famous son, Gustavo Dudamel.

And now, a chance to hear some of the fruits

of Sistema Scotland's hard work,

with the Rondo from Abdelazar, written by the English composer

Henry Purcell in 1695. Here is the Big Noise Orchestra,

with some players as young as six,

all of them from Raploch,

conduced by their patron, Gustavo Dudamel,

giving it their best shot.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

A sterling performance by the youngsters of Big Noise,

led by Gustavo Dudamel. This really is an experience

they will surely remember for a very long time to come.

Now, another piece performed during the first half of tonight's concert.

Beethoven's Egmont overture,

written in 1787 as music for Goethe's play of the same name.

This time, members of the Big Noise Orchestra

are joined by the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela,

conduced by Gustavo Dudamel.

SUSTAINED CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And before that performance, a surprise gift

from the members of the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra

to the young local musicians joining them tonight.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

A great reaction from the audience,

including maestro Abreu, from Venezuela,

the founder of the Sistema programme.

Also in the audience, many proud parents, watching their children

perform with one of the world's greatest orchestras,

here in Raploch.

Well, the children from Big Noise have packed away their instruments

and, along with their families, are settling down now to enjoy

some more fantastic world-class music.

The stage has been specially built for tonight's concert

and when Dudamel offered to bring the orchestra across,

Sistema Scotland chose this site, in the heart of the community,

rather than a concert hall.

As well as a strong local crowd, everybody here is welcoming

Gustavo Dudamel, who is conducting the Simon Bolivar Orchestra's

performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3, the Eroica.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

APPLAUSE

APPRECIATIVE WHISTLES

MUSIC: "Third Symphony (Eroica), Third Movement" by Beethoven

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, we're coming to, not the finale,

but no performance from the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra

and Gustavo Dudamel would be complete

without the show-stopping piece

which is the Mambo from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.

The Mambo, you might remember,

is one of the dances at the gym from act one of West Side Story.

It represents a kind of dance-off between the Sharks and the Jets,

the two rival gangs from New York

featured in Bernstein's and Sondheim's 20th-Century musical,

inspired, of course, by Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet -

in West Side Story, Tony and Maria.

Mambo!

Mambo!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The Mambo. Leonard Bernstein's Mambo from West Side Story.

Of course, how else would you end a concert like this in Scotland

but with Auld Lang Syne, albeit with a Venezuelan twist?

Robert Burns' international song of friendship.

MUSIC: "Auld Lang Syne" by Robert Burns (music: trad.)

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd