EYO has begun the 2024 season with a very successful symphony orchestra weekend on 9 and 10 March, and players have now returned home to practise their parts before the course proper at the end of July. Our conductor, Sian Edwards, travelled up from London for the weekend, and worked with the players and our specialist tutors on this year’s repertoire – Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture and Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. We will also be joined for our summer concerts by accordionist Ryan Corbett, the first accordionist to be part of the prestigious BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist scheme. He will be playing Mikhail Pletnev’s Tatar Rhapsody with the orchestra – the first time we will have experienced an accordion concerto! We are also looking forward to our Ensembles Course for younger players in the Easter holidays, and are expecting well over 100 young musicians from almost 50 different schools across the region to come together for four days of ensemble music-making. For many of these young players it will be the first time that they have ever had the opportunity to play in a large orchestral group. We are delighted to be able to offer this course free of charge to participants, thanks to generous sponsorship we have received.