Hallé Youth Orchestra – Shostakovich Symphony No.5

Euan Shields conductor
Hallé Youth Orchestra

Programme includes:
Katie Jenkins Awakening
Shostakovich Symphony No.5

‘Wow!! What a professional and mature performance was given last night (again). The Hallé Youth Orchestra have grown, concert after concert, under Euan’s thoughtful direction’ – Youth Orchestra Parent

Under the baton of Euan Shields, Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra and winner of the 2023 Siemens Hallé International Conductors Competition, the younger generation of our Hallé family open this concert with Awakening. A musical tapestry, it weaves together the rich and historical sound world of Wales and the vibrant energy of New York City; the two places Katie Jenkins has called home. Commissioned by the Juilliard School for the Juilliard Orchestra’s opening concert of 2024/25, this piece serves as a celebration of the excitement and anticipation of new beginnings. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is one of his most famous, and one of the greatest and most powerful of twentieth-century orchestral works. It was, supposedly, ‘A Soviet artist’s response to just criticism’. It is now known that this popular symphony was composed as a work of defiance so subtle that no-one realised at the time.

Concert sponsors: Espirit and Siemen Hallé International Conductors Competition