She is Scotland’s leading classical music star and now she is to apply her lauded talents to a revolutionary music programme.

Nicola Benedetti, 21, the chart-topping violinist, is to become a regular teacher and performer at the Big Noise project in Raploch, Stirling, the music initiative for children based on Venezuela’s El Sistema project.

The acclaimed musician may even play alongside the young talents being encouraged and taught to play classical music on the estate once known more for deprivation than its home-grown orchestra.

The former BBC Young Musician of the Year is to become a regular visitor to the Raploch estate, playing for and working with the young people there who, following the example of the inspirational South American teaching model, are forming their own orchestra with the help of free instruments and intensive tutoring.

“Venezuela’s El Sistema has caused a lot of excitement and I was absolutely thrilled and proud when I heard an orchestra had started in Scotland,” she said. “Sistema Scotland and its Big Noise Orchestra are demolishing barriers and taking classical music to a whole new audience. That’s something I feel passionately about so I just had to get involved. I can’t wait to meet the children.”

Dr Richard Holloway, the chair of Sistema Scotland, said: “Nicola Benedetti is one of the biggest stars in classical music. She is the perfect inspirational figure for the children, and we are extremely pleased she is becoming involved.

“We know she has a busy work schedule, so we are most grateful to her for making this commitment.”

Some of the children in Raploch have already seen the violinist perform at a Proms in the Park concert in Glasgow.

Ms Benedetti will play for the children, give occasional master classes and, it is hoped, perform alongside them at Big Noise concerts.

Dr Holloway said: “The children themselves will help choose a name for the role. We want to honour Nicola for her wonderful achievements in music, as well as using her to inspire our children.

“As an honoured visiting artist we hope she will be something of a musical big sister for the orchestra.”

The Big Noise orchestra is the first of its kind in the UK, and is modelled on Venezuela’s hugely successful El Sistema movement, which produced the lauded young conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who is now musical director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Sistema Scotland’s patron.

More than 200 children in Raploch – including those of nursery and primary one age and pupils of a special educational needs school – now play classical instruments and take part in a series of intensive lessons.

Three nights a week there is an after-school orchestra, where children work in instrumental sections and take individual lessons as well as play as an orchestra.

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

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, focusing on children from the slums, or barrios, of Venezuela.

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

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