Braimah Kanneh-Mason celebrates youth orchestras at Brighton Festival

And that’s why he is delighted to join Brighton & East Sussex Youth Orchestra at this year’s Brighton Festival for a concert in Brighton Dome Concert Hall on Monday, May 12 at 19:30 (tickets from Brighton Festival).

Braimah will be soloist for Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto in G minor Op 80. Under conductor Peter Davison, the concert will also feature Farrenc Overture No 1 in E minor; Mussorgsky Night on a Bare Mountain; and Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker Suite Op.71a.

“To play with a youth orchestra is especially exciting,” Braimah says. “I remember my time with youth orchestras so well. And when you play with them the age gap between the soloist and the orchestra won't be so great and I think that gives you a more direct relationship with them. I think youth orchestras are incredibly important because classical music is often seen as an art form that's reserved for older people but also you see what is happening in musical education and there are constantly stories where you are seeing music provision being taken away. Youth orchestras like Brighton & East Sussex Youth Orchestra are important not just for the benefit of the young people themselves but also for the future of music.

“The first youth orchestra that I played in was Nottingham Youth Orchestra, and the direct experience was meeting people who are your own age and who are interested in the same things that you are interested in. It allowed me my first introduction to a community of other musicians and I just found that really encouraging.”

As for the Coleridge-Taylor piece: “He is a really fascinating composer with a really tragic life in many ways and it is important that his music is celebrated. His violin concerto is very big in scale and quite symphonic in the way that it was written. I think he has a great ability to write a melody and he has some of the most beautiful melodies in the repertoire.”

Maybe appreciation of his work is growing now but he has certainly suffered neglect: “But you look back through the history of music and you see had a piece Hiawatha that was played at the Albert Hall a ridiculous number of times. But the royalty deal that he signed was just a one-off payment unfortunately. But it was an extremely popular piece and you want people to hear it. I just feel really grateful and excited to be able to play this piece now. There's something special about playing a piece that you feel deserves to be heard more.

“Coleridge-Taylor (who died of pneumonia at the age of 37 in 1912, a death often seen in the context of the stress of his financial situation) was a violinist first and the composition came later. It's a very virtuosic concerto and it's very technically demanding. Because he is a violinist it is so well written for the violin. It is written in a way that you can tell that he really knows the violin, and despite its tricksiness it is something that is very satisfying. It's also a very romantic piece, early 20th century British music in the Elgar style where there is so much vibrato and so much time taking, pushing and pulling of time. The music is very stylistic in moving around. Throughout the first movement in particular he is very specific with his tempo markings but even within that he expects you to pull and push with time.”