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Contemporary research into community music programmes highlights diverse contexts for collaborative music making. This article contributes a case of the collaboration in music making to a growing literature on creative practice in community music initiatives led by major orchestras. The authors reflect on field research involving an after-school programme that provides free, classical instrumental music instruction to primary school-age students who would not normally have an opportunity due to their socio-economic circumstances. The Pizzicato Effect, run by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) in the City of Hume, Australia has operated in the northern suburbs of Melbourne since 2009. Through focus group interviews with students, family members and teaching artists, the researchers examined community experiences of accruing cultural capital in conditions of social inequality and multicultural practice. Using qualitative methods, the case study aimed to position respondents as experts in their own lives, who own their knowledge of their worlds. Collaboration was central to a model of improvisation developed locally by teaching artists and applied on site. Furthermore, improvisation took the programme in different directions to the El Sistema model of youth orchestra training in Venezuela, which had been the original source of inspiration for the programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]