One-hundred and sixty-four young musicians in residence for 11 days of workshops at Warwick University always promise remarkable results.

2024 proved to be a vintage year!

With five local representatives, including Kenilworth's Andrew O'Reilly, now principal cellist, National Youth Orchestra (NYO) introduced the latest work by Dani Howard, Ascent, a most unconventional work requiring 17 horn players to process on stage, turn their backs to the audience in order to engage in dialogue with their brass counterparts in traditional positions.

Working without a conductor, the responsibility for maintaining pace and cohesion was delegated to a percussion player who beat a wood block with a mallet! This was another of NYO's creative starts to a concert.

Smetana's six glittering symphonic poems were published as Má Vlast (My Country), the second of the six is Vltava (River Moldau) - a reference to a journey along the Czech national river – from a babbling brook high in the Bohemian forests, the music depicted by warbling flutes and pizzicato strings, through the rapids where the formidable horns take control, to the vast expanse of water close to Prague.

By this time the orchestration has grown, too, with rich wind playing and sparkling percussion, preceding those two climactic chords which end the work.

Richard Strauss's monumental Alpine Symphony is seldom heard as the orchestration requires more than 140 players.

Step up NYO with its vast brass section, including four Wagner tubas, a dozen or so off-stage horns as well! With this brass, a wide range of wind instruments, including a hecklephone and some appropriately flamboyant timpani playing all added up to an astonishing performance of the composer's 24 hour clamber across an Alp at the age of 15.

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