The Welsh Sinfonia at the Wiltshire Music Centre, Saturday February 20th 2015.

Mozart: Overture to the Marriage of Figaro.

Csanyi-Wills: The Seagull Nebula.

Haydn: Trumpet Concerto.

Pärt: If Bach had been a Beekeeper.

Haydn: Symphony No 101, ‘The Clock’.

Wales’ leading chamber orchestra The Welsh Sinfonia is a committed, joyous and intensely musical ensemble, directed by its charismatic and articulate Conductor Mark Eager. They gave us an outstanding concert, and though the hall was not full – the alternative lure of the Bath BachFest, no doubt – the audience was plainly captivated.

The technical excellence of musicians quite obviously working as one allowed Eager to change gear effortlessly between the formal structures of the earlier composers and the apparent freeform of the alternating contemporary pieces, one of which, by Michael Csanyi-Wills, was being given its English première. It was clever programming of very high quality music, and Eager’s humorous and instructive introductions linked the contrasting musical styles to offer a musical journey quite literally to the stars and back.

The evening’s trumpet soloist was 17 year old Julius Scholtz, a pupil at Wells Cathedral School, with which the orchestra has been collaborating for some years. Julius is already a rising young star in his home country of Germany, and despite occasional evidence of nerves, the beautiful tone and his mastery of the cadenza passages in Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto hinted to us how far he might go.

Wells Cathedral School also provided the pianist for Pärt’s ‘If Bach had been a Beekeeper’. Kirsty Chaplin tackled this important and very exposed element of the piece with confidence and aplomb, contributing to an intense and thrilling interpretation.

One final observation; the orchestra’s concert here was part of an Arts Council of Wales-supported tour in connection with their Crescendo Project, building orchestras in secondary schools. Against the backdrop of the news of proposed funding cuts to Wiltshire’s own County Music Service, the commitment of such an orchestra to the musical and educational health of the next generation is an outstanding example. We look forward to their return to Wiltshire.