Review: City of Leeds Youth Orchestra

Somehow 20th century music always seems to be the right stuff for teenagers, and this showcase concert for Leeds’ 100-strong Youth Orchestra showed them to be on top of their game.

Dave Heath’s African Sunrise/Manhattan Rave, written in 1995 as a vehicle for Evelyn Glennie and the Scottish National Youth Orchestra, was here stolen by Leeds’ 17-years old percussionist Jake Brown who owned it comprehensively in his remarkable performance.

The piece is a tribute to the Bernstein of West Side Story, less obviously in African Sunrise where Heath cunningly plays on young people’s well-developed capacity for sentimentality, more obviously in Manhattan Rave where Bernstein’s ‘Rumble’ and ‘Mambo’ scenes are prominent before Jake Brown climaxed his cadenza with a direct quote. A brilliant piece, brilliantly played, with Jake Brown echoing Gary Burton/Chick Corea collaborations on marimba and Buddy Rich on trash and kit drums. Shostakovich’s Symphony No 12, written in 1961, is a work of subtle, subversive genius played here with a touch of that same genius by these superb teenagers and their magician of a conductor Dougie Scarfe. Only Elgar’s 19th century-style long-winded Cockaigne Overture eluded these young players – and no wonder, it is not actually a very good piece.