Nearly two dozen city centre students will take part in a unique music program beginning this fall that will see professional musicians with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra come teach – at no cost to the students.

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra is partnering with the Edmonton Catholic School District to bring the intensive, after-school orchestra program to about 20 students at Mother Teresa Elementary School beginning in September.

The partnership also involves the Rotary Clubs of Edmonton Riverview and Sherwood Park as well as the Inner City Children’s Program.

The Youth Orchestra of Northern Alberta (YONA-Sistema) is expected to empower the city’s underserved young people through music and education outreach.

“This is an amazing opportunity to bring to the community what we do in the hall and bring it exactly to the community,” said Lucas Waldin, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra artist-in-resident and community ambassador.

“For certain underserved communities and for certain schools and certain demographics, it’s really important for us to get out there and do our part in our community to bring the music to them.”

For three hours, five days a week, Grade 2 and 3 students will learn violin at no extra cost to their families.

YONA-Sistema will begin as a three-year pilot outreach program. By the end of the three years, the program will expand to two schools, reach a wider age group and include more instruments.

The purpose of the program isn’t to train students to become professional musicians, rather, to promote positive social change, engagement and self-confidence building by learning to play a musical instrument.

“The point of it is to make their lives better, to make them better citizens, to make them better students and it absolutely works and I’m very glad that we’re starting it in our inner city,” said pianist Tommy Banks.

“Most importantly they will learn the value of self-starting and self-discipline that you learn in an orchestra in a way that you can’t possibly learn anywhere else and they’re learning it at a very young age which is absolutely terrific.”

The hope is that students who are part of the youth orchestra will make their first public performance debut in 2017.