2 February 2008 at 7.30pm

Mark Simpson (clarinet)

Conductor: Brian Wright

Enjoyment? - you bet!

MUSICAL director and conductor Brian Wright promised us an evening of enjoyment and entertainment in his typically cheerful preamble. He wasn't joking. This excellent group of players have taken on some daunting challenges this season but it is not always easy to put bottoms on seats unless there is a popular thread through the music on offer.

A large and appreciative audience loved it, even breaking the unwritten rule at one point to applaud after the first movement of the Weber Clarinet Concerto.   Mind you, such was the spark and virtuosity of 18-year-old soloist Mark Simpson that it wasn't all that easy to save the ovation to the end. This delightful mix of classical and romantic was the evening's least known piece but still wonderfully accessible. The excepts from Bizet's Carmen Suite got the evening off to an exhilaratingly fast start and after the interval, the hour-long Rachmaninov's Second Symphony gave most sections of the orchestra the chance to shine. The sumptuous melodies and melancholy that characterise much of the composer's work left some of the newcomers in the audience to come to a welcome if obvious conclusion - this is an orchestra well worth supporting.

Please do.

Review by Alan Bennett, Downs Mail

Click here to listen to a clip.

Mark Simpson won the BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2006. He plays Principal Clarinet in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He is a gifted composer who has been commissioned by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain  to write his first orchestral piece for 2008. He has played at the last night of the proms in 2006