Hands-down winners: CBSO Youth Orchestra and Bavouzet triumph in Mahler and Ravel

By Katherine Dixson, 26 February 2013

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Reviewed at Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 24 February 2013

Ravel, Piano Concerto in D major for the left hand

Mahler, Symphony no. 5 in C sharp minor

Andrew Litton, Conductor

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Piano

CBSO Youth Orchestra

A heroic attempt: the CBSO YO tackles Mahler’s Fifth in Birmingham

Simon Cummings, 18th February

Jan van Steen and the CBSO Youth Orchestra give a competent, credible account of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, alongside Robert Horstein’s forgettable percussion concerto Juvenalia.

**111

Volatility unites music by Elgar, Strauss and Takemitsu in Birmingham

Simon Cummings, 23rd February

The CBSO Youth Orchestra under Kazuki Yamada find connections in three works inhabiting very different worlds.

****1

Just like 1913: CBSO YO taps into the shock of The Rite of Spring

Simon Cummings, 3rd November

The CBSO Youth Orchestra under Andrew Gourlay both succumb to and transcend imperfections in their performances of Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

****1

Gražinytė-Tyla‘s Debussy Festival in Birmingham

Mark Pullinger, 25th March

With concerts and recitals imaginatively programmed, this second weekend in the CBSO's Debussy Festival was a model of how to make classical music accessible to the widest possible audience.

Energetic evening from the CBSO Youth Orchestra

Katherine Dixson, 22nd February

Exuberant enthusiasm from the CBSO Youth Orchestra in a mighty programme of Lutosławski, Prokofiev and Mahler.

****1

UK première of Turnage's Passchendaele

Katherine Dixson, 2nd November

Mark-Anthony Turnage's Passchendaele, his WWI-themed piece, received its UK première this evening, in a concert given by the CBSO Youth Orchestra.

***11

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Katherine Dixson

Katherine is an enthusiastic choral singer. Becoming chairman of her choir proved the catalyst for writing a memoir into which she crammed musical experiences galore, including her own belated musical education and encounters with professional musicians. Combining music, writing and travel is Katherine’s idea of bliss. Her website is here.