MUSICAL brothers from Kenilworth will be tuning up together close to home in the new year.
Violist Patrick O’Reilly and cellist Andrew O’Reilly are both members of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain which will be performing at Warwick Arts Centre on January 7.
The siblings are part of 2023 NYO cohort made up of an collective of 156 talented teenage musicians from across the country.
Described as ‘the world’s greatest orchestra of teenagers,’ the NYO are renowned for their musicianship and wide repertoire, with their University of Warwick concert – entitled Odyssey – featuring Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes, from the composer’s opera Peter Grimes, and Rift, a work by contemporary English composer Anna Clyne for which the NYO are presenting the first performances in the UK.
Patrick, 18, said: “I began learning the violin at the age of six before transitioning to viola at the age of ten. My gran was the main reason – once when visiting her, she said she had a viola for me to try, however I couldn’t find it so my excitement changed quickly to disappointment.
“When I then got the chance to finally try viola, I absolutely loved it and have never looked back. I then joined the National Children’s Orchestra for four years before being privileged to gain a place in NYO in 2019. At this point, I had just begun studying at the Junior Royal Academy of Music after being at the Junior Birmingham Conservatoire for two years previously.
“I believe that opening up orchestral music for my generation is incredibly important and possibly the biggest challenge of the music education system today and I believe as NYO, we can help with that. I think that visiting primary schools and encouraging children to start playing music at a young age is vital.”
Andrew, aged 16, said: “I kept playing the violin like a cello, so for my sixth birthday, my grandparents got me a cello.
“At NYO, I love playing big orchestral works with fantastic players and I enjoy the wonderful coaching and the magnificent concert halls we get to play in. In the future, I hope to take my experiences back into my school and share them with the local orchestras in my county.”
Visit www.warwickartscentre.co.uk for tickets and further details.
