28th August 2000
The First of the Four Seasons
In a year in which the BBC prided themselves on their encouragement of youth, we had the opportunity to show that this has always been one of the purposes of the Prommers' Orchestra. Never before. though, have we achieved it with quite the aplomb. The first desk of the First Violins was aged 28 - in total. Matthew Kettle, fresh from the semi-final of the Young Musician competition (and now playing in the National Youth Orchestra) relinquished his place at the front of the violas and led the orchestra with a former colleague from the National Children's Orchestra beside him. One of our oldest members played a solo on his flute and a steward provided us with another chance to emulate the other concerts during the Proms season and give a premier - though this one seemed to be appreciated by all of the audience. The concerto is an enigma - who wrote it? The conductor and soloist united in favour of Haydn, but the big names of scholarship disagreed.