14-year-old Stephen Smithers

THE Saffron Walden–based Uttlesforde Orchestra’s summer concert on June 30 is to feature 14-year-old Stephen Smithers in a performance of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto.

THE Saffron Walden–based Uttlesforde Orchestra’s summer concert on June 30 is to feature 14-year-old Stephen Smithers in a performance of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto.

The Bishop’ Stortford College student will play this lively and challenging work, which the composer wrote in 1956 for his then 19-year old son Maxim.

It will form the centrepiece of the Uttlesforde Orchestra’s concert which will also include Brahms’ mighty First Symphony and opens with Mendelssohn’s Overture Ruy Blas.

As well as playing viola with the National Children’s Orchestra (NCO) for five years, Stephen is also a member of the Essex Youth Symphonic Wind Orchestra where he plays euphonium.

In 2009, he won the Harlow Young Musician of the Year for the under 12s with his performance on the piano; this year he won the under 16 brass section. He plays in numerous orchestras, bands and ensembles and takes lessons in the electric guitar.

The Ruy Blas Overture is a typically lively product of Mendelssohn’s creative genius, a work composed in three days for a performance of a play of the same name by the great French writer Victor Hugo. Brahms’ First Symphony has often been called ‘Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony’, which Brahms himself interpreted as his own homage to the older composer. In complete contrast to Mendelssohn it took Brahms 14 years to complete.

• The concert will take place on Saturday June 30 at 7.30pm in Saffron Walden Town Hall. Tickets from Saffron Walden Tourist Information Centre or on the door. Visit uttlesforde.net for more details.