The exceptional National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America performs three vibrant 20th-century masterpieces. These talented young musicians are joined by Festival regular, American conductor Karina Canellakis, praised by Gramophone for her ‘finesse and fire’. 

Samuel Barber’s effervescent Overture to The School for Scandal is followed by George Gershwin’s Piano Concerto, which brings the energetic rhythms of jazz dances and the soulful sound of American blues into the classical arena. Virtuoso pianist Kirill Gerstein, described by Tagesspiel as ‘a real phenomenon’, joins as the soloist.  

The concert closes with Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra – his final, and most popular, orchestral work. The Concerto sprung from a period of darkness in Bartók’s life, while he was living in exile in the US and suffering from illness and poverty. Yet, when the conductor Serge Koussevistzky visited him in hospital to commission this piece, Bartók went on to write this alternately nostalgic, witty and joyful tribute to his native Hungary, which is now a hallmark of classical music repertoire. 

Supported by Dunard Fund