Concert Review: Children's Prom

Concert Review: BBC Proms, Prom 59, Royal Albert Hall, Monday 30th August, 11.00 am-12.30 pm, Aurora Orchestra, National Children's Chamber Orchestra, National Youth Chamber Orchestra, Nicholas Collon.
500 Words

'Crikey, they are making a lot of noise backstage!' Basil Brush remarked as he popped up from a fox hole in the corner of the RAH stage. Whether the orchestra was in fact louder than Basil himself - who delivered an uninhibited commentary to the children's prom, the 59th concert in the 2010 Proms season - is debatable. Accompanied by the gentler-worded Louise Fryer and conducted by the amicable Nicholas Collon, Basil 'boomed' his way through a carefully crafted and varied programme, which included break dancing to Prokofiev, Capoiera to Lully, 'safe' show-stoppers such as Rimsky-Korsakoff's The Flight of the Bumble Bee, alongside more adventurous programming such as the 2nd Movement from Schostakovitch's 10th.

As an adult going with a child, I appreciated the programme, which achieved a balance in being educational as well as entertaining; enlivening works through visual accompaniments and unusual orchestration rather than tacky sensationalism (would I expect anything other from BBC Radio 3?) The required amount of audience participation was tasteful, keeping children engaged by making them clap and stomp in time with the orchestra, yet not going as far as to make the adults feel stupid.
I enjoyed myself, but how did my 9 year old piano pupil feel? Her description of the experience as a whole on leaving the hall, was that it was 'fantastic'; when quizzed further she disclosed that the elements of dance in the programme had been her favourite. On reflection, I consider this an interesting point. Obviously, for a child, the attraction of dance provides a richer experience than the music alone; it enables the child to see the music in direct relationship to gesture and emotional narrative. What I would have liked to have seen done is movement utilized in such a way as to highlight sonic relationships, providing a visual structure to help the children hear the music differently. A point in the programme which would have benefited from this was the penultimate work, Chis Willis's composition Mashup, an interesting orchestral arrangement of all the music heard through the concert. A lovely idea, I thought, but how many children, after hearing the works just once, would be able to identify motific fragments as they were played on top of one another in complex contrapuntal arrangements? Unfortunately I fear that the point was lost; perhaps corresponding visual cues would have been one way in which this clever design may have been communicated to the young audience.

However, I do not make this point to undersell the morning's success. My pupil came from the concert feeling inspired, which is obviously what concerts of this nature strive to achieve. As we discussed afterwards, a large amount of this to do with the fact she had noticed the ages of the young performer's in the Aurora Orchestra and the National Youth/Children's Chamber Orchestras, who delivered the programme with mature expression and virulent sense of drama. I was worried that intimidation may have had the opposite effect, but no, the resulting logic from the experience was a firm 'if they can do it, so can I', which is wonderful. Therefore, in relation to the points made above, and on the basis that the experience may encourage at least two days of diligent practice my verdict has to be: excellent, 5 stars.