Vacation Chamber Orchestra ends year on high

ARGUABLY the UK’s finest student chamber orchestra, established by Xenophon Kelsey, the founder and conductor of Ripon St Cecilia Orchestra, the Vacation Chamber Orchestra are playing twice in the run-up to the New Year.

Young musicians from across the country, and indeed from the EU, come together three times a year for to rehearse and perform under the expert tuition of eminent musicians. The tutors fthis time are Stephen Orton, of the Chilingirian Quartet and principal cellist of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and Colin Scobie, of the Maxwell Quartet and concert master of the Malmo Opera Orchestra.

The programme is: Nielson Little Suite for Strings; Baerman Adagio for Clarinet and Strings, soloist Sam Gillespie; Boccherini Cello Concerto No 9, soloist Louis Baily; Mozart Horn Quintet (first movement) soloist Billy Marshall; Martinu Serenade for Clarinet, Horn and Strings and Arnold String Symphony.

The three young soloists are: Louis Baily, now in his third year at the Guildhall School of Music and principal cello in the Opera Orchestra. Louis recorded Ben Burrows’ String Quartets to accompany two silent films by Hitchcock and Walter Summers; Sam Gillespie, solo clarinet, is a third year student at the Royal Academy of Music. While a pupil at Chetham’s, he was twice awarded the Woodwind Prize; Billy Marshall, solo horn, music scholar at Bootham, now has a scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music.

After three days of intensive tuition and rehearsal, VaCO will perform twice; Thursday, December 29, St John’s Sharow, and Friday, December 30, St Peter’s Stokesley. 7.30pm to 9.45pm. Tickets £10 (under 18s free) at the door or in advance from 07974-142-484.