Rarely has an orchestra enchanted and thrilled its audience as did the National Children’s Orchestra of Venezuela at the Salzburg Festival! This astonishing group, founded in 2010 by Jose Antonio Abreu as part of El Sistema, is conducted by Sir Simon Rattle at its international debut.

The second half of the program features the White Hands Choir, founded in 1995 in an effort to integrate people with disabilities into society more fully through music. The unusual ensemble is divided into two groups: children with movement, visual and cognitive disorders form the actual chorus. Their singing is transformed by the other group, children with impaired hearing, mute or D/deaf-mute children, into an expressive choreography of flowing hand movements, their hands clad in white or colored gloves. The program features Latin-American folk songs and Piazzolla arrangements as well as choral works by Mozart and Rutter.