A VANLOAD of junk salvaged from the council tip at Caister has been turned into musical instruments.Portuguese artist/musician Joao Ricardo has created a complete orchestra, working over the past fortnight with foundation degree art and design students at Yarmouth College, and breathing new life into everything from golf trolleys and lamp stands to computer keyboards and old ironing boards.

A VANLOAD of junk salvaged from the council tip at Caister has been turned into musical instruments.

Portuguese artist/musician Joao Ricardo has created a complete orchestra, working over the past fortnight with foundation degree art and design students at Yarmouth College, and breathing new life into everything from golf trolleys and lamp stands to computer keyboards and old ironing boards.

Joao, 49, who has found international fame playing, of all things, a vacuum cleaner made into a wind instrument, is now composing a special piece for the new instruments and has already started rehearsing with music students from the college.

His youthful orchestra will join him at Yarmouth's Hippodrome on October 30 to play on the same concert bill as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in one of the showpiece events of the town's new Out There cultural festival.

Joao said: “This is the first time I have had students of this age helping me make them and I have really enjoyed the experience.”

Student Sam Harrons, 18, helped to make a drum kit out of plastic bins and a children's trampoline and is impressed by the thunderous sound it makes.

He said: “I like making something out of nothing and I am amazed what a good sound all the instruments make.”

Ben Melluish, 19, who worked on a percussion instrument made out of a circular dish, said: “I think Joao is a brilliant bloke and I like the idea of what he is doing in re-using rubbish.”

Jane Gamble, a visual and performing arts teacher at the college, said: “The students' first project is all about exploring new ideas and helping to make the instruments has been a great way of opening their eyes to new ideas.”

SeaChange Arts has secured £150,000 of funding for the first year of the Out There festival which will run from October 25 to November 2.

Other highlights include a tightrope walk across the Market Place by Frenchman Didier Pasquette and the UK premiere of a comic show by French street act Las Alamas Givres on the theme What Happens When the Petrol Runs Out? The festival's finale on Sunday, November 2 will be an international music day in the Market Place with musicians from as far afield as Zimbabwe and Iceland.