L'Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste in concert

Congo Calling captures the latest step in an extraordinary odyssey for the world's first all-black orchestra. Over the past two decades, L'Orchestre Symphonique Kimbanguiste (OSK) has developed from a group of self-taught church musicians, sharing instruments or making their own with scrap wood from the market, to a full-sized symphony orchestra.

Kinshasa is the capital city of the mineral-rich but violent and poverty-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, a country where rumba rules and, until the OSK formed, classical music was just about invisible.

When the 100 musicians and their founder conductor Armand Diangienda touch down at Manchester Airport to an ecstatic welcome, they start singing – and from then the music-making rarely stops.

The programme follows the musicians as they work side by side with the Hallé orchestra and choir in Manchester, and later at the Southbank in London with members of the National Youth Orchestra, BBC orchestras, Southbank Sinfonia and more.

The musicians take time out from their hectic schedule of instrument repairs, seminars, rehearsals and performances for visits to Old Trafford stadium, the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall and the London Eye for a joyous, spontaneous singalong.

There are fascinating glimpses of the orchestra in Congo in clips from Claus Wischmann and Martin Baer's 2010 documentary, Kinshasa Symphony.

Congo Calling charts the pride, passion and joie de vivre of an orchestral community abroad. It witnesses the exchange of experience and ideas between European and African musicians, and between seasoned professionals and passionate amateurs.