Page 197 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book

even allowing glints of humour amid the darkness. She held her audience
spellbound – an audience as comfortably diverse as many a UK city street.
How is that mix achieved? Given the paucity of audience information in the
recent Arts Council England Let’s Create survey, the question is worth
asking. A Pegasus spokesperson summed it up as years of building up
mailing lists and writing to general opera lovers as well as targeting black
events, organisations and individuals, plus group leaders and bookers.
Hard work, but not mysterious. Pegasus’s double bill, given three
performances, may look like a small event. On the contrary, it is a catalyst
for change.

“Long accused of being a private school bastion, the NYO now draws 50% of its
players from the state sector”

That happened to be the title – Catalyst – of the National Youth
Orchestra’s spring season concerts with the National Youth Brass Band of
Great Britain, which took place in Liverpool and London. The sight of
multitudes of strings, wind, brass is always a thrill. The addition of a superb
young brass band was another matter. Conducted by Tess Jackson, one-
time NYO violinist and a Classic FM “rising star”, these teenage players
made light work of Gavin Higgins’s Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and
Orchestra

‘Ridiculously talented’: cornet player Lewis Barton, left, with bandmates at the
Royal Festival Hall. Photograph: Chris Christodoulou