Orchestres Démos

Launched in 2010, Démos (Dispositif d'éducation musicale et orchestrale à vocation sociale, a music and orchestral education scheme with a social purpose) works to widen cultural democratisation through making music in orchestra. It shapes the citizens of the 21st century by placing music at the heart of their development and giving a central role to social work.

As part of a coherent educational and artistic approach overall, it offers classical music lessons to children who do not have easy access to this practice for economic, social or geographical reasons.

The project is aimed at children aged 7 to 12 living in priority urban neighbourhoods (QPV) or in rural revitalisation zones (ZRR) far from places of musical practice. Each child is entrusted with a musical instrument for three years.

Supervised by music and social-sector professionals, the different groups of children who make up an orchestra attend weekly workshops of 3 hours 30 minutes on average, organised into instrument families, and regularly come together for a tutti rehearsal.

The scheme owes its success in particular to suitable educational supervision, cooperation between cultural and social-sector players, the development of a specific collective teaching method and the ongoing training of its instructors.

Changes in the relationship to learning, self-confidence, concentration and listening, respect for others, creativity… The benefits of Démos are many, and more than 13,000 children have already benefited from it.

Initially centred on the Île-de-France region, the scheme has expanded nationally since 2015 and now has nearly fifty orchestras spread across the whole of France.

Coordinated by the Philharmonie de Paris, Démos is supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Regional Planning and Decentralisation / the National Agency for Territorial Cohesion (ANCT), the Ministry for Overseas France, and the family allowance funds (caisses d'allocations familiales).

To this funding is added the decisive support of more than 300 local authorities that host the orchestras, and a community of committed patrons.