Reflections on 30 years
Thirty years ago, the orchestra we now call the National Youth String Orchestra (NYSO) was the brainchild of Viviane Ronchetti, head of instrumental music at Queenswood School and a violinist in the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF).
As she said soon afterwards, she wanted to “introduce the pleasure of good string orchestra playing and the glories of the string repertoire to young string players”. To succeed, she knew she had to “establish an organisation that could provide first class training from people who had spent their professional lives playing the chamber orchestra repertoire” and to “make sure that the fees required to achieve this would not have to be passed on in full to the students”.
Viviane recalled: “I first approached my headmistress, Audrey Butler, with my idea and she introduced me to David Woodhead, Director of National ISIS – the Independent Schools Information Service – which set about mailing information about the orchestra to their many member schools as well as investigating ways to raise sponsorship from various sources”.
She asked me if the orchestra could be called the National ISIS Strings Academy so that it could have a memorable acronym – NISA. It was also originally for talented string players in independent schools, who often found entry to county youth orchestras difficult because priority was given, understandably, to state school pupils.
Only a few years later it became the National Youth Strings Academy – by which time applications were welcomed from all types of school. Its current name was adopted in 2013.
From being simply an idea early in its 1995 foundation year, to assembling coaching staff, recruiting players, holding weekend courses and giving a ‘debut’ performance, progress was rapid. In fact, from idea to realisation took little more than six months, the first public performance taking place in the acoustically unforgiving Earls Court Olympia during an ISIS-organised independent schools exhibition.
After Olympia, the orchestra played its way through the saints in London – St John’s Smith Square, St Peter’s Eaton Square and St James’s Piccadilly – as well as venturing further afield to the Adrian Boult Hall in Birmingham and the Jubilee Hall, Aldeburgh.
Many highlights followed. Viviane drew on her ASMF connection by recruiting its founder-conductor, Sir Neville Marriner, as our senior patron and he conducted four of our London concerts between 2000 and 2011. One of these included a London premiere – Patrick Hawes’s Highgrove Suite.
Concerts in Leeds, York, Oxford, The Sage Gateshead, Cambridge Summer Music festival, Leatherhead, Harrogate, Stamford, Fishguard, Aberystwyth, Aberdeen, Snape Maltings, Three Choirs Festivals and Lake District Summer Music festivals have brought NYSO to wider audiences in the UK and the same was achieved abroad by tours to Italy, at the invitation of the William Walton Trust in Ischia, Denmark and the US (including the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage). Sir Neville also conducted in Ischia.
Even in its early years, reviews of its concerts were glowing, as in The Strad – “It’s not hard to see what impresses audiences and fellow musicians alike about this focused ensemble”, Daily Mail – “Sir Neville Marriner continues to draw astonishing sounds out of NYSA’s young string-players” and Glasgow Herald – “…. needle-sharp performances …. startlingly light and transparent”.
Damian Iorio, a former violinist in the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra from a distinguished Anglo-Italian musical family, who has conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras, became our artistic and music director and senior orchestra conductor in 2010. Charles Clark, a solicitor and amateur violinist, has been chairman since 2005 and oversaw our restructuring as a company limited by guarantee and gaining charitable status.
Under their bold and imaginative leadership, the organisation has developed from one orchestra to four: the Senior NYSO for players aged up to 21 is directed and conducted by Damian; the Camerata (13-17) and Sinfonia (9-12) are directed by Rachel Erdos, who conducts the Sinfonia with Leon Bosch conducting the Camerata, and the Sinfonietta (7-10), formed in 2023, is directed by Monica Wilkinson. All are supported by exceptionally dedicated and experienced instrumental coaching and pastoral teams.
A key principle of the organisation since its inception 30 years ago is that no talented string player should be denied the benefits of the NYSO experience by inability to afford the full residency fees. But that requires the availability of sufficient bursary funds to provide help on a means-tested basis. Indeed, the future of NYSO depends upon it. For more information please click here.
Written by David Woodhead, one of six NYSO trustees.