Born in 1931, Silvio Baccarelli started his musical career at 12 years old, when he joined the Seminar in São Sebastião do Paraíso (MG). At the age of 15, he assumed the conducting of the choir in which he acted, while studying to become a priest and a specialist in sacred music.

After leaving the priesthood, but never ceasing to be a missionary, Sílvio founded, in 1960, the Coral Baccarelli, which until 1980 was called “Classical and Folkloric Choir of São Paulo”. In order to promote choral music in its broadest expression, Coral Baccarelli performed in 1987 in Madrid, during celebrations for the centenary of composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, and in 1994, received the awards for Best Group Choir and Best Recording of Classical Music by the São Paulo Association of Art Critics.

Since 1980, Maestro Baccarelli expressed to his friends the desire to create a project that could generate social transformation through music. In 1996, moved by the news of a fire that displaced hundreds of people in Heliópolis - a community close to the neighborhood where he lived and worked, Sílvio began to give music lessons voluntarily to 36 children from a public school in the region. A few months later, the small string orchestra that originated the Baccarelli Institute was formed.