Brighton and East Sussex Youth Orchestra

About

Peter Davison conductor

Curtis Phill Hsu piano (Winner of Hastings International Piano Competition 2024)

Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op 18

Ethel Smyth The Wreckers Overture

LeFanu Airs and Fanfares

Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre

Aged 19, US-born Curtis Phill Hsu won the biennial Hastings International Piano Competition in 2024, having impressed the jury with his “artistry, musical maturity and technical brilliance”. He now returns to the Brighton Festival, following an impressive lunchtime recital of Debussy Préludes last year, to play Rachmaninoff’s hyper-romantic Second Piano Concerto alongside the youngsters of the Brighton and East Sussex Youth Orchestra.

Written in 2024 for the young players of York’s Yorchestra, veteran British composer Nicola LeFanu’s exuberant Airs and Fanfares – alternating fanfares that showcase the brass with airs that foreground the woodwind – were specifically designed so as to, in her words,“ allow the advanced players to shine, but not daunt the less experienced”.

To complete the programme, the tempestuous overture to pioneering suffragette composer Ethel Smyth’s Edwardian opera about murderous Cornish sea scavengers is offset against Saint-Saëns’s violin-led Hallowe’en vision of Death fiddling while skeletons dance on their graves.

Artistic Director of the Brighton and East Sussex Youth Orchestra since its foundation in 2021, Peter Michael Davison enjoys a busy career in both the concert hall and the recording studio, and is equally comfortable conducting the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra or the soundtrack to Casualty.

Classical Music
Family
Mon 11 May, 7.30pm

£10, £15, £17.50*

This event is taking place at Brighton Dome Concert Hall

Ages 5+, no unaccompanied Under 14s in the venue

Reserved Seated

Create Music
The orchestra forms a key part of Create Music’s offer to young musicians, providing high-quality ensemble experiences and public performance opportunities as part of its commitment to musical progression across Brighton and East Sussex.

The Steinway concert piano chosen and hired by the Brighton Festival is supplied and maintained by Steinway & Sons, London.

Supported by Mayo Wynne Baxter

*There is a £3.50 per order charge for all phone and online bookings (not applicable to Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival members)

**Stage timings are subject to change