What are the things this country can take pride in? Thirty years ago, we could have said one of them was our music education system. Back then the evidence of its quality was plain to see, in the youth choirs and orchestras you could find in every county. Some of them, such as the Leicestershire Schools Symphony Orchestra, were so good they could commission eminent composers to write for them. And at the apex, there were those top-rank ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, which were admired the world over. When the European Community Youth Orchestra was set up in 1976, almost half the players came from the UK.