STUDENT MUSIC REVIEW: Chetham's Philharmonic Orchestra Concert - The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.

An hour-long concert this afternoon celebrating music and music-making with the youngest students of Chetham’s School of Music upon the hallowed stage of Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.

This afternoon’s concert started in jolly mood as Chetham’s Director, Tom Redmond, conducted the orchestra in Shostakovich’s Festive Overture. A rousing start and the students responded well to Redmond’s arm-waving.

Following this and an arrangement for orchestra of the Scottish traditional tune, Loch Lomond. This involved the orchestra being tasked into singing the verse in harmony which they did delightfully, and, being Scottish, this lovely arrangement managed to bring a tear to my eye. Just lovely.

The main body of the concert was Prokofiev’s First Piano Concerto, with a brilliant young man on the piano, student Patrick Townsend. At such a young and tender age he managed to combine both passion and technique to provide a beautiful line in this slow and dramatic writing. The orchestra this time was conducted by Nick Jones.

Following this, the young string ensemble known as Violetta performed the first movement of Grieg’s Hoiberg Suite sequeing this into a Bulgarian traditional folk tune, Buchamish. Without either conductor or music this was not an easy ask for these youngsters, but they rose to the challenge admirably.

The concert was brought to a close with the performing of the classic music world’s longest crescendo. Ravel’s Bolero. Conducted by David Chatterton, the orchestra started suitably quietly, and deftly brought this rather repetitive but stirring piece of music to a loud and thrilling conclusion. Perhaps because the musicians are so young, I don’t know, but this piece was far more ‘static’ than I have heard it before, and the fff finish was not truly wantonly eardrum splitting.

Nevertheless, this was a superb concert, most enjoyable, and performed by young students who obviously are both immensely talented and have bright musical futures ahead of them. 

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 6.7.23