Rising from the ashes

The transformation of a derelict London church into the LSO's state-of-the-art music education centre is worth every penny spent, says Annette Morreau

"Education, education, education." Wasn't that the cry? Easy are the words, harder the deeds. But with little fuss, one of the most ambitious and visionary projects in recent times has come to fruition in a remarkably short period of time and for a remarkably reasonable price.

The London Symphony Orchestra, for the past 13 years, has been running its LSO Discovery programme aimed at people who might not otherwise have access to live music. It embraces education in its widest context: LSO musicians work alongside people of all ages and abilities in creative workshops, informal performances, masterclasses and training sessions. Daytime concerts for schools and families at the Barbican Centre attract more than 30,000 people a year and offer introductions to some of the greatest orchestral music.

Just last week, the Barbican concert hall was packed to the rafters with seven- to 10-year-olds revelling in the spookiness of Stravinsky's Firebird, as animateur extraordinaire Richard McNicol, in expansive avuncular form, charmed them all – and even a few hard-bitten adults... It is a win-win situation: the orchestral players clearly love it – many must be parents too – and there's no hint of condescension, no "B" team.

The Barbican concerts are the icing on the cake, topping months of preparatory and peripatetic work. But now the indefatigable and resourceful Clive Gillinson, the managing director and driving force behind the LSO, has achieved the greatest of triumphs: a centre for educational activities – indeed the first ever orchestral music education centre in the UK.

Standing a few minutes walk from the LSO's home base at the Barbican Centre, the early 18th-century church of St Luke's, regarded as one of Nicholas Hawksmoor's and John James's finest creations, has stood roofless and derelict for decades. The elements and Old Street were unkind to this gracious building. But at a cost of £18m (50 per cent raised privately), and with construction and enabling works begun only in 2001, a phoenix has risen from the ashes. Architects Levitt Bernstein Associates, structural engineers Arup, mechanical and electrical engineers Max Fordham & Partners and acousticians Kirkegaard Associates have realised a building not only faithful to the spirit of the original but innovative in a variety of ways.

The main space above ground, the rectangular body of the old church, provides accommodation for a full symphony orchestra, with flexible staging and seating at ground level for up to 250 people and a further 100 seats in a narrow gallery above. It retains the original stone walls, exposed brick and window features, while modern insertions – great steel trusses, heavily laminated glass – are treated as "benign interventions into the worn and time-ravaged shell of the old church". In this space, the Jerwood Hall, the LSO's large-scale educational events, smaller-scale performances, rehearsals and recordings will take place.

The acoustic is fully adjustable, but more remarkable is the absolute silence: large trucks and buses can be seen trundling along one of London's busiest streets and not a thing is heard or felt. The combined genius of many is apparent in this building: the heating and cooling system draws on the natural energy found in the earth 100m below the building; the new roof (under the Heathrow flight path) is a substantial mass of heavy concrete; "tree" columns carry the load away from the church's main walls; the downstairs seating disappears in an electronic twinkling of an eye.

Remarkably, the hall accounts for only one third of the space, for below in the reconstructed crypt (1,000 "remains" were removed) there is a 60-seater café with kitchen, the LSO's orchestral music library, a full Balinese gamelan (percussion orchestra), workshops and rehearsal rooms and the Discovery technology laboratory. All areas are cabled, enabling events to be captured, recorded, edited, mixed and disseminated. The Discovery room, heady with state-of-the art-everything, allows people "to remotely view and hear events, meet artists and players, receive tuition and discuss projects through online discussion forums, video-conferencing, transmission and reception of multicasts, webcasts and broadcasts".

An invited audience of the great and the good – Arts Council and Heritage Lottery, UBS, Jerwood, Corporation of London, the Weston Family and English Heritage – all sponsors of this magnificent project, were last week put through the full monty: a new piece workshopped in front of their eyes and ears with the help of two groups of secondary school kids and the wondrous McNichol. But even his silky explanations could not make light of a very serious piece of music especially commissioned for the occasion from James MacMillan. A Deep but Dazzling Darkness is, superficially, a 20-minute concerto for violin, ensemble and tape. But in its subtext it's nothing less than a bid to reinstate the anguished prophet Job as the patron saint of music – St Cecilia's current job.

MacMillan is a man of subtexts, but on so joyous an occasion a work quintessentially tied to suffering seemed strongly to resonate with issues wider than the subject of the evening. It was McNichol who succinctly explained how the work was structured on two themes: the medieval chant "L'homme Armé" and an old Dutch song "Sirjob", but I doubt that many went out into the night whistling either. Nor for that matter did the schoolchildren, taking these themes, present more than exploratory doodlings in their two "spots" – although a wailing Camden School for Girls' pupil demonstrated a remarkable voice.

Job, portrayed by the violin, gave the soloist (and leader of the LSO) Gordan Nikolitch plenty to get his fingers around. Clearly episodic, the piece brought moments of strident, passionate writing and many unusual sounds: a contra-bass clarinet, gongs submerged into water, two keyboards tuned a tone apart, mysterious and menacing whisperings. In its darkness, manic and mocking, MacMillan's Scottish broodiness met Shostakovich despair. A "scherzando like a crazy gig" leading to a bitter waltz said it all. MacMillan may not have written a celebratory piece but he has written one that will last. LSO St Luke's still needs £1.5m to keep going: the final phoenix?