FREE FOR 19S AND UNDER Summer Concert Tour 28 July — 8 August 2021 Saffron Walden, Birmingham, Leeds & London WELCOME ABOUT TO NYO’S NYO HOPE The National Youth Orchestra of Great Inspiring Inclusivity Award. In recent years Britain is a dynamic community of brilliant the BBC Proms has given a platform for EXCHANGE teenage musicians making orchestral music music by Anna Meredith, Tansy Davies with, by and for their generation. and Iris Ter Schiphorst, and our 2021 summer season includes music by Jessie Since its founding in 1948 in the aftermath Montgomery and a new commission from Wordlessly expressive, innocently Alongside the five concerts taking place, of the war by Dame Ruth Railton, NYO Laura Jurd. NYO is Southbank Centre’s persuasive, music is the lifeblood of hope, NYO’s Hope Exchange has involved our has been a change-maker, bringing young Associate Orchestra and, as Classic FM’s and an irrepressible medium of dissent. musicians going into hundreds of schools people together from across the nation for Orchestra of Teenagers, collaborates across the country this summer, giving the first time. The orchestra was a symbol with the broadcaster to offer £5 tickets We’re delighted to welcome you as the individual concerts exchanging musical of hope and optimism in youth and in the to under-25s to all NYO concerts. The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain hope with young audiences. There will role of the arts to heal a war-torn society BBC generously broadcasts all NYO makes an explosive and triumphant also be a series of webinars hosted by and has since nurtured the dreams of concerts on BBC Radio 3. return to live music-making across the our musicians with international youth teenage musicians including many leading UK, celebrating being back together organisations, to shed light on extraordinary musical voices; from Sir Simon Rattle, Sir NYO is a charity, and this year in particular in live performance for the first time environments in which music-making Mark Elder and Kwamé Ryan to Alison we are incredibly grateful to our community since Autumn 2020! is an act of hope for young people Balsom, Thomas Adès and Judith Weir. of supporters who have allowed us to keep around the world. playing even as concert halls across the NYO is committed to enabling young Now, 73 years later, NYO musicians country shut down overnight. people to find their voice in and through Find out more about NYO’s Hope Exchange have come through the pandemic with orchestral music, come what may. We kicked at our website, nyo.org.uk a renewed vigour and passion for You can find out more about the orchestra off creative planning for the summer by sustaining music-making in their lives on the NYO website at nyo.org.uk inviting young musicians from the orchestra and the lives of other young people. to tell us how they see the world they live in If you can give a one-off gift, a regular and what role they want their music-making Together they will open up their art form gift, support a seat or underpin one to have in the world. We came away with a and create musical communities with of our programmes, please visit: powerful sense that NYO's theme for 2021 teenagers across the UK. NYO has the nyo.org.uk/support-us has to be 'hope'. voice of young people at its heart, young people who want to live in a world where Hope gives us our image of what lies on orchestral music is truly representative of the other side of our difficulties, hope helps the society they live in. This is why we have us to keep going through uncertainty. The renewed our commitment to championing give-and-take of hope guides every detail and commissioning new music by women of our summer of relationship-building and composers and composers of colour. performance-sharing. This commitment was recognised in 2021 when NYO was awarded the UK Youth 1 SARAH ALEXANDER OBE Chief Executive & Artistic Director The power of hope! support through #NYOMightyRiver. This project was celebrated by the youth Tonight’s concert is powered by hope. sector, winning the prestigious UK Youth Hope has been more important than Inspiring Inclusivity Award. ever during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has upended the lives and Tonight, many of the musicians who shaped dreams of young people. these incredible projects perform together live for the very first time. Thank you for NYO’s Hope Exchange is our defiant being here with us. The thread that runs response to the pandemic. This summer through these projects is that music-making our teenage musicians are on an urgent is a radical act of hope. mission to inspire other young people with a nationwide explosion of live performance Our determination to give young people in schools, outdoors and in concert halls. hope through music is heightened by the pandemic: young people need music and Since March 2020, NYO has engaged music communities more than ever, and with hundreds of young musicians on we will rise to the challenge working with digital platforms. For the first time in our and for them through NYO and NYO 73-year history we worked differently, with Inspire. We have been delighted to bring traditional orchestra roles gone, we were NYO’s passion to our supporters over no longer an orchestra. A community of lockdown. We have played the music creative musicians with something to say you love and – with your help – we will about the world emerged; our musicians continue to do so. Without you, we simply felt the pulse of the nation and led a huge could not be here. And a huge, necessary campaign to share musical joy through thank you to everyone who supports young #NYOdetoJoy, leading thousands of musicians with encouragement, teaching, people nationwide to make music together and passion for music. Together we are a at the same time, from their own homes, national youth orchestra. celebrating the NHS; our musicians raised their voices for racial justice in the wake of the worldwide protests in Summer 2020 and used their musicianship to show 2 3 LAURA JESSIE JURD MONTGOMERY Composer Photo: Monika S. Jakubowska Photo: Jiyang Chen Drawing on elements of popular African- American musical styles such as big-band Records from a Vanishing City is based jazz, funk, hip-hop and R&B, the piece pays Laura Jurd is a trumpet player, composer What do you love about being a composer? on my recollections of the music that homage to the the many voices, which have and improviser from the UK. She’s the The mysterious magic that is discovering surrounded me on Manhattan’s Lower East risen against aggressive forces. recipient of multiple awards and a BBC new sounds and re-discovering familiar Side in the 1980s and 1990s. Artists, truth New Generation Artist from 2015-2017. ones. Whatever is going on in the world, seekers, and cultures of all kinds defined I have drawn the work’s title from Dr. She was commissioned by NYO to write music is an ever-giving constant. our vibrant community. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” CHANT, a work exploring communal speech in which he says: “We must rise to expressions of hope. CHANT receives What is the most challenging part of being A year before completing this work, the majestic heights of meeting physical its world premiere by NYO on 28 July at a composer? a very dear family friend passed away force with soul force.” Saffron Hall. and I inherited a large portion of his eclectic For me, it’s shaking off of the historic and record collection. James Rose was one Banner was written as a tribute to the Who or what inspired you to become cultural gravitas around the word ‘composer’. of the many suns in the Lower East Side 200th Anniversary of the Star Spangled a composer? A lot of the music I make is very collaborative cosmos who often hosted parties and Banner, which was officially declared the by nature. I rarely write for musicians I don’t Playing the piano as a toddler and discover- generous gatherings for our extended artist American National Anthem in 1814 under know very well. As I get older, I’m less and family. His record collection was a treasure the penmanship of Francis Scott Key. ing the joys of making music at an early age. less interested in giving people a completely Playing, improvising and composing have trove of the great jazz recordings of the finished score that dictates every nuance 1950s, 1960s and beyond – he was mad for For most Americans the song represents always been intertwined – expression and of the music. communication through music. John Coltrane, but also Miles Davis and liberty and solidarity against fierce odds, Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman, and for others it implies a contradiction What advice would you give to teenage as well as traditional folk artists from Africa, between the ideals of freedom and the Tell us about your new piece, CHANT, musicians interested in composition? and what inspired it. Asia and South America. realities of injustice and oppression. To listen and to trust yourself. If you love As a culture, it is my opinion that we I’m very drawn to music that feels primal, how something sounds then that is what you In the process of imagining this piece, a Americans are perpetually in search of earthy and ancient. A lot of the music I love want to capture.