NSSO Website

12th - 19th July 2008
Wellington College - Crowthorne, Berkshire

The first NSSO course took place in Suffolk in 1994, with its debut concert at the internationally famous Snape Maltings Concert Hall. Since then the orchestra has met every July for a week of high-quality music-making. The course is always held in a residential school with good, modern boarding and leisure facilities, and with a first-class concert hall (either in the school or nearby) for the final concert, to which all parents, families and friends are welcome.

NSSO appoints experienced professional conductors, skilled at relating to young people and able to make appropriate demands on them. The music chosen will be taxing and requires a high technical standard. For the first part of the week most rehearsals are in sections; sectional tutors are all professional musicians who have extensive experience of orchestral playing as well as being chosen for their ability to relate effectively to young people.

The course takes place during the holidays and, although members will work hard in rehearsals, the atmosphere is relaxed and purposeful: the aim is to make music together to the highest standards as well as to make new friends and have fun. There is a full team of pastoral staff, and the course is led by the Course Director, David Evans.

Membership of NSSO will extend and deepen any young instrumentalist's experience of orchestral playing and provides a unique opportunity for those who love music and are happy to spend a week of their holiday as part of a superb and "professional" orchestra.

Conductor
Peter Donohoe was the winner of the 1982 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. His piano playing has been described as being “in a class of his own, an interpreter with a quite extraordinary feeling for musical phrasing, a 'sculptor' of the piano; his relentlessly clear representation of thematic conflicts brings the drama to life." (Detlef Brandenburg, Schleswig-Holstein, 1993).

He appears regularly with the major London and British regional orchestras and across Europe with the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, WDR Köln, the Berlin Komische Oper, the ORF, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Stockholm Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Czech Philharmonic and the Maggio Musicale in Florence. He recently gave a series of concerts in Spain and Portugal with The Philharmonia and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

Peter has performed annually at the BBC Proms and appeared at the Edinburgh Festival for six consecutive years. He has played at the renowned French piano festival La Roque D'Antheron, and in Germany at the Festival of the Ruhr and at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. He plays regularly in Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. In the United States he has appeared many times with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the Dallas Symphony and The Cleveland Orchestra. He has made many fine recordings and won awards for his recordings of the Liszt Sonata (Grand Prix International du Disque Liszt) and Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto (Gramophone Concerto Award).

He is establishing a reputation as a conductor, and particularly in his interpretations of Russian works such as the ones he has selected for the NSSO course in 2004. He is also a major champion of modern English music.

To qualify for entry you must be still at school (or sixth form college) in the summer term 2008. It is expected that you will be studying your instrument at a high level and we may request a reference from your teacher. An ability to learn quickly, a passion for music and an enthusiastic attitude are all just as important as grades attained

To apply, please complete the attached form and send it with a cheque for audition and deposit (see below) to the Administrator, Richard Smyth, by the end of December 2007. (Later entries will be accepted where possible but only where there are still vacancies.)

Please also ask your instrumental teacher to post or e-mail a brief reference for you. Applications will be acknowledged and auditions details sent out early in January; auditions will be held around the country in January and February.

Fees

A cheque for £180 should be sent with the application: £30 is the audition fee and £150 a deposit for the course (this will be returned if unsuccessful at audition). For previous players, only the £150 deposit is required with the application.
An invoice for the remainder of the course fee will be sent in March.
All cheques should be made payable to NSSO and sent to the Administrator.

Bursaries

A limited number of means-tested bursaries are available, thanks to generous sponsorship by HSBC Bank plc and support from the Tim Bowles fund. Please ask the Administrator for an application form once a place has been offered on the course. Click here to complete the online application form. For further information please contact enquiries@nsso.org