The National Youth Orchestra wows the audience in Kandy
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Last Friday the Dharamaraja College auditorium was the venue for a unique and artistic evening of classical and contemporary orchestral and choral music that featured young talent being honed to perfection to exceed the mere act of playing music; it was a wonderful collaboration of over 300 youngsters from age 11 to 25 – a chorale of no less than 250 students, both girls and boys from schools in Kandy and 70 budding musicians of the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) – who came together for an unforgettable musical performance.
The musical afternoon opened with the orchestra performing the first movement of Beethoven’s “Symphony # 5” which was followed by Sunil Edirisinghe’s “Ruduru Thuru Wadule”, John Philip Sousa’s “Liberty Bell”, the much loved and venerated song “Danno Budunge” composed by the Indian musician Viswanth Lauji and “The Typewriter” – a composition by Leroy Anderson, in which compère Arun Dias-Bandaranaike used an actual typewriter as a percussion instrument – the evening continued renditions of “Mihikatha Nalawala”, “When you Believe”, “Katu Akule”, “Love Changes Everything”, “Amigos Para Siempre” and “World in Union” by the choir was simply perfection in sound that suggested that the coaching masters had thoroughly prepared these youngsters, who performed as a single disciplined unit carried by the committed dedication and direction of Ms Ushitha Samarakoon, Deputy Director of Western Music of the Ministry of Education; even the encounters with the Kandyan Dancers of the Ranaviru Royal College and the girls of Mahamaya Girls school impressed the audience in their own way as did the skit by the comparer Arun Dias-Bandaranaike for “Typewriter”.
The evening concluded with Johann Strauss Sr.’s “Radetzky March” that won rounds of applause and cheers by more than 400 spectators – student, teachers and parents who packed the auditorium at Dharmaraja College.
This year also marks the 27th anniversary of the founding of The National Youth Orchestra (NYO),that has during the past decades made great efforts to create an awareness of classical western music to school audiences.