José Antonio Abreu, who has died aged 78, was the founder of El Sistema, the Venezuelan education programme that has used the power of music to rescue children from poverty, drug abuse and ignorance; among its notable successes have been the conductor Gustavo Dudamel, now music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and members of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra.
Other countries have followed suit, including Scotland, where a Sistema-like operation known as Big Noise was developed on a tough housing estate in Stirling with support from the violinist Nicola Benedetti. The cellist Julian Lloyd Webber was enthralled by the operation in Venezuela, declaring in The Daily Telegraph: “It is...