The best of Irish youth orchestras will perform at the National Concert Hall on Saturday, Feb 8. Of the Irish Association of Youth Orchestras 8,000 members, just 400, or eight orchestras, will perform at the 19th annual festival.

HAVING been closely involved in the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) since its inception in 1970, I can empathise with Anne Ralph’s disappointment at the decision of the board to amalgamate its two existing youth orchestras (Irish Examiner letters, April 23).

THE decision to amalgamate the nation’s two youth orchestras means, in effect, that the junior National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) will remain relatively unchanged while many members of the senior National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ireland — among them students of prestigious institutes in Ireland and abroad — will be past the new age limit of the orchestra.