We just went to the student orchestra concert our school district put on. In the 4th-6th grades, 50% of all of the kids (public school) participate in a weekly orchestra! This concert included everyone 5th-12th grades, in probably 8-10 different symphonic orchestra groups.
There were at least 500 kids participating! Isn't that incredible? I thought it would be lousy, with the grade school kids doing "Hot Cross Buns," but they sounded like what I thought a high school would sound like! The junior high was amazing, and we left before the high school kids played (it was already 2 hours into it).
I took my third grader to motivate him. He is in his second year of piano and pretty good. In the fall, he said he wanted to play the Viola which sounds like "dark chocolate." The orchestra teacher started a recruiting visit to his class.
Just amazing! It's open to all kids in our city.
