From a Young Musician: Pyramid Concert Review

The string groups and orchestras annual Pyramid Concert took part on 28 January in partnership with the Friends of Southampton Youth Orchestra. For many of Southampton's young musicians and their families this is the highlight of the year where younger players are inspired by the more senior players and the more advanced players can reflect on the musical journey they have been on over the years. As always the standard of playing was incredibly high from all groups with a huge variety of music being played from a Midnight Feast through to a Slavonic Dance.

"The Pyramid Concert is always such an inspirational concert for all players and is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the musical achievements of Southampton's young musicians" — Zoe Hunting, Ensemble Manager

Below is a review from Zoe Williamson. a member of Elgar Strings:

The Pyramid concert is one of the biggest concerts of the year for all the Southampton Music hub orchestras. It is when all the youth orchestras (Acorn, Elgar, SYS, SYSC, SYO) play. We all love this concert (even the conductors), it just creates the most surreal atmosphere for the players. This year we all enjoyed playing our pieces. Every orchestra's performance was great.

Acorn, the youngest orchestra with some of the musicians that have been played for less than a year, played a piece called Midnight feast. It was funny and enjoyable because it contained a mix of singing and playing. Also, their leader George was amazing.

Elgar's memorable moment in this concert was their piece Nightrider, the group's favourite. It was very exciting and thrilling to play and listen too. The piece had the smaller children work hard and we all knew they practised a lot in rehearsals. There co-leaders Lucas and Lucy made sure everyone stayed in time. Even Kevin said " it was the best Elgar had played in seven years"

Next was SYS with their leaders Shin and Enuya. They played the 4 movements from Sunny Strings. They were jolly, mood lifting, bright and light. The bass line was well supported by the cellos and the double basses.

After the interval, SYCS played 2 pieces: one of them was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. They really created the atmosphere of the story with audience interaction. It was gripping and made us sit on the edge of our seats. We think the conductor, Anna Robinson, really wanted to connect with the audience. She also showed the audience that she does not always need to conduct because the orchestra was following their leader, Samuel.

To finish off the concert, SYO played the Overture to Orpheus in The Underworld

which is a piece everyone knows because it is also known as the French Cancan. It was magnificent and powerful the way they played it. It also made us dance our way off to collect our instruments

This concert is very inspirational for the audience and the younger players to see what they could achieve as a musician. Hopefully it also inspires more children to play instruments.