Kirklees Youth Symphony Orchestra


Kirklees Youth Symphony Orchestra is part of Kirklees Music School and was founded in September 2000 with the aim of providing high quality orchestral opportunities for students in the area who had reached advanced standards of performance.

The youth orchestra embraces a variety of genres and styles, from classical to contemporary, film and popular, engaging in project work with other arts organisations and complementary groups. Since its creation it has performed a huge variety of works from Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 to Kleinsinger’s Tubby the Tuba and Karl Jenkins' The Armed Man.

The Orchestra will perform Malcolm Arnold's overture opus 97, Peterloo, which takes its inspiration from an incident in St Peter's Fields, Manchester on 16th August, 1819. 8,000 people met peacefully to listen to a speech on political reform, but on the orders of magistrates, the Yeomanry and then Cavalry were sent in to arrest the speaker Henry Hunt. In the ensuing panic, eleven innocent people were killed and 400 injured. Arnold's musical portrayal of these events begins in tranquil mood, but the lyrical string melody is soon interrupted by the arrival of the percussion, which forge on throughout the Vivace until we reach the desolation of the Lento. The Andante con Moto forms a lament for the killed and injured before the triumphal finale reassures the listener that those who died, did not do so in vain.

Musical Director: Thom Meredith
Instrumental Coaches: Ralph Barker, Nick Dolling, Will Mace, Rachel O'Sullivan

Age range of performers: 10-18

Performing:
Peterloo by Malcolm Arnold