Only a year ago, children in the Raploch area of Stirling were nervously picking up classical instruments for the very first time.

Now they are playing in their own orchestra, experts on the qualities of violins, violas, and double basses, and growing into a musical force.

Striking evidence of the early success of the Big Noise music project in the deprived area, the pioneering Scottish version of a Venezuelan youth music system, was on display at a glittering reception at 11 Downing Street.

With the Thursday night reception, held at the invitation of Maggie Darling, the wife of the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, came news of a cash injection of £150,000 from one of the leading UK charities, and a promised, and unprecedented, visit by the Venezuelan maestro and founder of El Sistema, Jose Antonio Abreu, to Stirling next year.

However Richard Holloway, chair of Sistema Scotland, the charity that runs Big Noise in Raploch, said it still needs to raise £1.7m to continue the work it has begun.

More than 200 children in Raploch now play classical instruments in a series of intensive music lessons, including Primary One and nursery age children, and children in a special educational needs school.

Three nights a week, there is an after-school orchestra, where children learn musicianship - working in instrumental sections and have individual lessons as well as playing as a complete orchestra.

The reception at No 11 was attended by figures such as cellist Julian Lloyd Webber film-maker Murray Grigor, and key figures from the arts and establishment in England, as well as Abreu, and the star of the Sistema project, the acclaimed young conductor Gustavo Dudamel.

It is hoped that a film shown at the event will encourage those with access to funds to give to the Big Noise in Raploch, which is led by its director, Nicola Killean.

As yet the Scottish project - which is likely to expand to similar projects in Glasgow and Aberdeen - receives no money from the Scottish Government, although three similar projects planned in England recently received £2m from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Although the Big Noise is to now to receive £150,000 from the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, Mr Holloway says more stable funding is required to take the project to fruition, a process that could take 10 years.

Apart from private donations, it has received two grants from the Scottish Arts Council, one of £80,000 and one of £45,000, both in 2008.

Mr Holloway said: "We do not want to be another big disappointment for these kids. We don't want to pack up because all the money has dried up.

"Obviously we are going to go after the wealthy individuals and trusts for money, but we also want to enthuse the ordinary people of Scotland about this.

"It costs about £2000 a year for every child to be taught in the Big Noise. If the child ends up in the criminal justice system, the cost of that is £18,500 a year. I would like to see the money going to a youth relationship system such as this. You can work out the maths, it's a no-brainer really."

He said in a speech at No 11: "By recruiting children and immersing them in orchestras, we can slowly, year upon year, build them into something stronger and greater and more enduring than the despair that surrounds them. They learn discipline, they experience joy, they co-operate passionately with each other to create excellence, and a wonderful beauty is born."

Abreu will visit Raploch next year, making time in a continuous concert schedule for the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, the best musicians of El Sistema to teach in Stirling.

An aide to Abreu said: "He will find the time. He believes no country has done it as well as it has been done in Scotland. He is thrilled by it: Raploch is very close to his heart."

In Venezuela, after 30 years of operation, El Sistema has taught more than 400,000 children and set up more than 130 orchestras in an economically divided and politically fractured country.

Officially that system, which focuses on children from the slums, or barrios, of Venezuela, is titled the Fundacion del Estado para el Sistema Nacional de las Orquestas y Coros Juveniles e Infantiles de Venezuela.

Sir Simon Rattle, the famed British conductor, has said El Sistema is the most important thing happening in the musical world today.

Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta and Placido Domingo have all visited Venezuela and are fervent supporters.