A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4

11.30am, Tuesday 15th September, 2015

 

On 30th July 1955, the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra gave its final concert, as recounted in Death of an Orchestra, Whistledown's recent music feature for BBC Radio 4.

 

As he tuned in to the programme, David Taylor was coincidentally in the process of creating a new youth orchestra: the Yorkshire Young Sinfonia; and the story it told of the YSO gave his project a new sense of purpose: “To create the musicians of tomorrow, providing a springboard to a career in the arts, and stimulate the arts in Yorkshire”. He is preparing a report looking back at the legacy of the YSO, surveying the current musical landscape of Yorkshire, and considering its orchestral future.

 

In Birth of an Orchestra, musicians and music lovers young and old discuss Yorkshire orchestras past, present and future; and the programme follows the musicians of the YYS as they prepare for their inaugural concert in August – almost exactly 60 years on from the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra’s final performance.

 

 

Producer: Susan Kenyon

Executive Producer: Kevin Dawson

for Whistledown Productions