Talk about a feast. By the time we arrived at the main course – Stravinsky’s The Firebird in its original 1910 incarnation – the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain had served up 14 toothsome appetisers. Yet this concert never felt overlong or piecemeal, a testament to judicious programming and immeasurable reserves of youthful adrenaline.
The preliminary performances took place in the Festival Hall’s ballroom. With audience and players virtually on top of each other, it was a chance to witness up close the spirit of cheeky camaraderie that ignites this orchestra. Highlights included Adam Gorb’s Omaggio a Giovanni, a tribute to Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli mingling modernist dissonances with flickering Renaissance fanfares, and Simmy Singh’s arrangement of Punch Brothers’ Flippen, a bluesy stomp that felt like the Welsh equivalent of a Scottish ceilidh.
