Art and class

As adult education for anything other than workplace skills disappears down the tubes this made great reading. Ed Vulliamy writes, in a profile of Simon Rattle, of El Sistema, a Venuezelan scheme "whereby the poorest barrio children in shanties beleaguered by gang warfare and drugs are organised into orchestras to play classical music".

It was the brainchild, 30 years ago, of an extraordinary man and inspiration to Rattle, José Antonio Abreu, who once told me, unforgettably: 'The rich owe the poor a debt which they will never pay materially. But they can repay it culturally, so that to deprive the poor of great, high art is a terrible form of oppression.'

Nice if they repaid the debt in full though. In the meantime, some music.



And an encore