In October, Wyatt, 29, will leave her job as the North Carolina Symphony's director of education and community engagement to participate in the Abreu Fellows Program in Venezuela and at the New England Conservatory. The fellowship will train accomplished musicians to run a program that nurtures the talent of children in poor neighborhoods.

For Wyatt, the real work will start next July, when she steps into her role as executive director of the KidZNotes pilot project. The nonprofit agency tentatively plans to start providing music education to pre-school children in an area targeted by the East Durham Children's Initiative, said Kathie Morrison, a KidZNotes board member.

The East Durham Children's Initiative, modeled on the Harlem Children's Zone, aims to support families and children from birth to high school in a nearly one square mile area east of downtown.

The idea came from Durham resident Lucia Powe, who was inspired by a July 2008 segment on CBS's "60 Minutes" on El Sistema, Venezuela's internationally acclaimed national youth orchestra.

In 1974, José Antonio Abreu, a retired economist and amateur musician, launched a free, classical music program for Venezuelan children from impoverished backgrounds. About 35 years and 800,000 students later, El Sistema has evolved into a nationwide organization of music centers, youth and children's orchestras, according to information provided by KidZNotes.

After watching the show, Powe, 78, ordered copies of the segment for various community members. In the fall of 2008, she asked Morrison to watch the segment.

"It really spoke to me," said Morrison, who retired in Durham, but spent 15 years at Stanford University in California researching urban poverty in Latin America.

Morrison said she had seen some exceptional programs, but none with El Sistema's success. She contacted the New England Conservatory, which had ties to El Sistema. In February, the conservatory told her about a fellows program to train musicians to implement the El Sistema model in the United States and abroad.

In March, the New England Conservatory contacted Morrison and said a young woman from the Durham area was interested in applying for the fellowship. That young woman was Wyatt.

"She was fabulous," Morrison said. "There couldn't have been a better candidate."

In elementary school, Wyatt started playing the viola, an instrument with the strings of a cello, a body like a violin, and a warm, sultry tone. For Wyatt, who had moved across the United States and Europe while her father served in the U.S. Navy, music evolved into a consistent companion that introduced her to friends and opportunities.

"It was something I could take with me everywhere," Wyatt said.

In 2005, one of those opportunities led her to Venezuela as a member of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas. There, Wyatt learned about El Sistema firsthand.

While Wyatt had always believed clichés, such as music can change lives, she had never witnessed its power on such a large scale.

"[I saw] that if you have kids who don't have an opportunity, and you invite them to practice and perform together, and you set it so they can do it every day, and you support them, and you pick them up and drag them down there, and you make it happen, eventually they will pick it up," she said. "And then it just goes."

Earlier this year Morrison learned Wyatt was among 10 chosen for the program -- out of 200 applicants -- and that the conservatory had offered her a scholarship.

Marsha Basloe, the executive director of Durham's Partnership for Children, said KidZNotes is an ideal project to add to the East Durham Children's Initiative.

Research shows classical music training helps develop children's brains and build a focus on achievement, Basloe said. "I think the younger we expose them to this the better chance they have of incorporating it into everything they do," she said.