Event: NYOS Spring Concerts, classical music, Caird Hall, Dundee and GRCH, Glasgow
Review by Alan Scott Robertson, 58, Glasgow: five stars.
We attended the NYOS concert in Dundee on Friday, as we had to collect our daughter after the concert, but we enjoyed it so much that we returned for a second helping in Glasgow, the following night. It was very interesting to compare the acoustic influence of the two halls - in the dry acoustic of GRCH, every detail of the orchestra's very precise and well-balanced playing came across with stunning clarity.
With the support of the more resonant acoustic of the Caird Hall, the hushed playing of the strings in Nimrod created a magical, ethereal effect, and the hall's magnificent organ added even more grandeur to the final bars of the Enigma Variations.
Walton's Johannesburg Festival Overture was a wonderful opener - I despair that Walton only merits one entry in the 2014 Classic FM Hall of Fame.
James MacMillan's trumpet Concerto, Epiclesis was given an exhilarating performance, both by the soloist, Mark O'Keeffe and the orchestra and Peter Longworth's NYOS commissioned partita, Ludi was a very effective prelude to the Elgar.
Despite the excellence of the concert, however, I feel compelled, once again to bemoan the lack of public support given to these wonderful young musicians - in Saturday's Herald article, Michael Tumelty pondered about the lack of concert-goers attending NYOS events. If the meagre size of the Glasgow audience caused him alarm, then the even thinner turnout in Dundee would have caused him great despair.
If you've never heard a youth orchestra perform live before, try listening to this performance also given last Saturday, by another similar orchestra, NYOGB http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0414dm5, and maybe it will encourage you to support NYOS events in future.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article