I THINK that, when memories of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture Year are fading, the effects of the £250,000 music education grant to the city will resonate more and more.

Anybody who has watched the London Proms on BBC TV will have heard of Dudamel and his Venezuelan Youth Orchestra, playing Latin American music in their bright tops.

They were created by a man, good at raising government sponsorship, and who realised that making music was a way of getting children from deprived areas to work together and feel part of the society they live in.

The way that it was done can he seen in a recently released 90-minute documentary about the orchestra and its members’ backgrounds, plus a 60-minute concert recorded in Bonn to demonstrate just how much has been achieved. They play the Eroica Symphony as well as the Latin Pops.

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic have followed their example with both instrumental and ballet tuition – The Rite of Spring emerged from that. No longer must children learn a musical instrument by practising in a cold back room, but they scrape and blow along together, giving community spirit.

The Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra is already a breeding ground for talent and one hopes that, having bred one Chief Conductor for the Berlin Orchestra, success won’t go to their heads.

But Everton will clearly increase the competition to gain a place in the RLYO – that is until they become a competitor themselves! What price in a few years we see a “Dudorattle” appearing on the world’s stage from the backwoods of Everton?

DING Dong Merrily, Christmas Bells, Jingle Bells, you just can’t get away from bells this week. For the citizens of Toxteth, Liverpool Cathedral (which has just won an epic bell ringing marathon, has its peal high in the tower, so that the sounds reaching the ground are mellow and not overpowering.