The Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra are busy practising and packing for a trip to Belgium to perform a concert in Namur at L’Abbaye de Malonne on 18 October, and then on to Brussels to take part in the ‘Violins for Peace’ concert on 20 October.
Organised by the International Yehudi Menuhin, ‘Violins for Peace’ features a wealth of music and film reflecting the humanitarian spirit and multicultural career of our founder, and continues the celebration of the centenary of his birth.
The 25-member orchestra will accompany soloists Valeriy Sokolov (YMS alumnus) and Kerson Leong in Bach’s Double Violin Concerto and Vadim Repin in Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin in D minor. The concert includes a mix of jazz, classical, Indian and gypsy music and the orchestra will also accompany virtuoso Hungarian gypsy violinist Roby Lakatos in a performance of Vittorio Monti’s folk-inspired piece Csárdás.
All performers are friends and past pupils of Yehudi Menuhin: violinists Dr L Subramaniam (India), Valeriy Sokolov (Ukraine), Vadim Repin (Russia/Belgium), Gilles Apap (France), Iva Bittova (Czech Republic), Volker Biesenbender (Germany) - another YMS alumnus, and Kerson Leong (2010 winner of the Junior First Prize at the Menuhin Competition in Oslo). Also performing, in addition to Roby Lakatos, will be the Turkish percussionist Burhan Oçal.
The concert at L’Abbaye de Malonne also includes the Bach and Mendelssohn Concertos – this time with soloists from the School: Bach’s Double Violin Concerto will feature Leonardo Jaffe Barbosa and Sophia Prodanova, and SongHa Choi is soloist in the Mendelssohn Concerto. To open the concert, Esther Park, Dillon Jeffares, Katherine Yoon and Joseph Edwards will lead the orchestra in Vivaldi’s Concerto for four violins in B minor, and Elvina Auh and Louisa-Rose Staples will perform Sarasate’s Navarra for two violins and orchestra. The programme is rounded out with George Enescu’s Intermezzi Opus 12.