PUPILS at Lourdes Secondary School put on a spectacular show on Monday as they were visited by members BBC Symphony Orchestra as part of BBC’s Ten Pieces coaching programme, becoming the first school in Glasgow to do so.

Head of Performing Arts at the school based in Cardonald, Debbie MacVicar, planned for members of the prestigious orchestra to visit the performing pupils after applying to the BBC programme aimed to get kids into classical music and orchestra groups.

She said: “I had put an application in for this scheme, basically saying how it would impact out pupils. The difficulty at the current time is keeping kids connected with their instruments and not give up.

“This is an excellent opportunity for them to experience what it is like to play in a full symphony orchestra.”

Primary six and seven classes from Lourdes Primary School, Our Lady of the Rosary Primary School and St Constantine’s Primary School all joined older pupils at Lourdes Secondary for a performance that brought the group that had performed previously separately together for the first time.

“Before this, we had only worked small independent groups – a woodwind group, a string group, and a brass group. What we’ve been doing since August is practicing individual sections of the music and then Monday was the culmination of their hard work.

“I saw the BBC Ten Pieces Coaching Scheme as an opportunity to get all of our feeder primary children that work with my instructors and the kids in the secondary to combine together into our first ever orchestra.”

The kids thoroughly enjoyed their time practicing with professionals, as parents and family looked on from the audience for the final performance of Mars by Holst and In The Hall Of The Mountain King by Grieg.

“About 90% of the kids had never played in an orchestral setting before so for them to experience that is just incredible.

“For them to achieve that in a day is incredible.”

Debbie hopes that the boost of confidence from the visit will encourage the kids to not give up on their passion for music.

She added: “I hate seeing people quitting, putting down their instrument, so even just to have the members of the orchestra there to show the kids and tell them what it’s like to work in an orchestra, I’m hoping it will inspire and motivate them to keep going and what is at the end of the hard times of learning an instrument.”

With the first time such a success, Debbie hopes to continue the orchestra.

She said: “We’ll be keeping the smaller groups and doing what we’ve done here – putting the pieces together for the big performance.”