Démos is a musical education program run by the Philharmonie de Paris. Since its establishment in 2010, it has provided musical education to children between 7 to 12 in underserved localities or rural areas; areas where classical music is not traditionally promoted.  
The organization not only lends children musical instruments but also provides lessons for up to four hours a week for 3 years – all without charge. Two professional musicians and a social worker work together to teach groups of 15 children. Their aim is to not only teach musical skills, but also provide emotional care and to promote the children’s personal development. At the end of this process, all instruments are given to children who want to continue learning music.

Once a month, 7 groups get together to form an orchestra of 105 children and annually, these orchestras perform concerts at local concert halls. Additionally, they also perform an annual concert at the end of June at Philharmonie de Paris.
In initiating this project, the wish of Laurent Bayle, Directeur général of Philharmonie de Paris, was to promote Démos insertion into the community of children "on the fringes," less favored than others. This is why the Démos program aims to gradually cover the entire territory.
Currently, Démos has nearly 4000 children enrolled in their program across the country; resulting in 38 Démos orchestras. For the future, Démos is targeting a number of orchestras up to 60 by 2022.
Démos is based on the pedagogy developed since 1995 by the Cité de la musique educational teams, enriched by other experiments carried out around the world, such as “Take A Bow” by the London Symphony Orchestra or El Sistema in Venezuela.
Mr. Bayle says, “We established Démos because linking with children in underserved areas is important for us and the El Sistema project showed us that musical education could lead to all kinds of other improvements in the world of education. We think the way music is transmitted between the teachers and the children is very important.”
Démos popularity has been increased by its patron, Lilian Thuram, the very popular soccer player whose personality is in perfect harmony with his spirit. He holds the record of selections in the French national team of football and world champion in 1998. In addition, Démos inspired a film La Melodie directed by Rachid Hami in 2017, which was a great success.
After studying at Démos for 3 years, 50% of the graduates continue to study music or get involved in classical music in one way or another. Démos’s annual operating cost is about 8 million euros. One third of the budget is provided by the French Government, another third comes from the private sector, and the final third by local governments.