NYOI Summer Proms City Hall, Cork

The vociferous, enthusiastic reception given by the regrettably small audience to the magnificent performance of Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony by these gifted young musicians almost did them justice.

City Hall should have been packed to capacity to hear what miracles the conductor, Alan Buribayev and the 94 members of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland wrought.

The concert began with two movements from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, a rarely performed piece that gave the orchestra the opportunity to display beautiful string and woodwind tone, excellent control of dynamics, and clean, precise brass and percussion playing. A reduced orchestra then accompanied sisters, Fiona (flute) and Jean (harp) Kelly in a memorable performance of Mozart’s gorgeous concerto for these instruments.

Shostakovich’s 10th symphony, written and first performed in the year of Stalin’s death, is one great shout of defiance.

Buribayev obviously loves the work and, in sharing his expertise with NYOI, drew astonishingly good playing from them, and especially from the woodwind players.

He graded the massive differences in dynamics wonderfully throughout and the thrilling final bars were quite overpowering in their intensity.