The Learning Orchestra

The Learning Orchestra

The Learning Orchestra (Leerorkest) is an innovative approach to music education which allows all children to learn a musical instrument and to make music together during regular school hours.

Music has so much to offer children. Playing music together is not only great fun, it has been proven to promote general development. Music makes children (and everyone else) intelligent, social and happy. Unfortunately, not all children in the Netherlands are given the chance to play an instrument. Music lessons are often expensive and inaccessible. The Learning Orchestra programme aims to change all that. When a school has a Learning Orchestra, every child is able to take part. The more children who play music, the better our country will sound!

The Learning Orchestra Foundation originally set up the programme in Amsterdam. Over thirty schools in all parts of the city now have a Learning Orchestra. They include approximately ten per cent of Amsterdam’s primary schools. In the capital alone, the programme has already reached some five thousand children.

In 2014, an instrument depository was set up to support the Learning Orchestra programme and similar initiatives by making musical instruments available on loan. The depository is adjacent to the NedPhO Koepel, the rehearsal rooms and ‘home base’ of the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra |Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.