Was anyone else at the City of Leeds Youth Orchestra concert tonight at Leeds Town Hall? I thought the performance of Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica was worthy of a standing ovation - it was superb. I've never heard the symphony before but it was very well performed, and accompanied by pictures of the Antarctic on a giant screen behind the orchestra and a very dramatic narration to set the atmosphere of Scott's last expedition. If anyone on here was performing in the orchestra, very well done!!


Incidentally they're giving another performance on Tuesday lunchtime and a free ticket came with the programme - if anyone would like it, email/PM me and I can leave it at the Yorkshire College tomorrow after work for you to collect

I was there - awesome!

I would have liked to have accepted your ticket for Tuesday's repeat, but I'm in Wednesday/Thursday this week so I can get to Thea's organ recital in Ripon.

Do you teach at the Yorkshire College? I used to go there for piano lessons as a nipper, what a trip down memory lane!. PM me if you like.

I'm an adult student there - probably the only change to the building that's been made since you were there is the extension studio where concerts, recitals etc are held. One or two of the long-standing staff are still there - I'll PM you tonight

I know you're an organist, guilmant, so you might be interested to know that Dr Simon Lindley, the Leeds City Organist, is one of the trustees of the Yorkshire College. He was playing the Town Hall organ at the Youth Orchestra concert last night.

The performance had a great review in the Yorkshire Post by the classical music critic David Denton I won't quote all of it but he said they "strode confidently through the score", it was a "remarkable achievement", "impressive composure", "it all worked wonderfully well" and "the whole orchestra responded with such infinite care to colour and detail".

A subsequent letter to the editor said "I concur with David Denton's five-star rating of the concert... it's sonorities in the Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica were in no way inferior to those of the Halle Orchestra, whose Manchester performance on Dec 6 I also heard".

Wow, well done again anybody who was involved!