Students step up to the podium at Lismore Symphony Orchestra concert

A SCHOOLS concert by the Lismore Symphony Orchestra has drawn more than 700 children to the Workers Club, with students conducting along, singing and jumping to their feet in one of the orchestra’s most successful outreach events.

The Friday performance proved so popular that the orchestra ran two sessions to meet demand, with more than 500 students in the morning and a further group in the afternoon.

The concert formed part of the orchestra’s Discovery series, built around Benjamin Britten’s A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.

LSO president and harpist Margaret Curtis said the aim was to give children a close-up introduction to orchestral sound.

“The kids adored it. They were conducting along, they were involved, they were singing the mambo out of West Side Story with the orchestra,” she said.

“A couple of lucky kids got up to be the conductor for a couple of minutes, which was great fun.”

Curtis said the response from schools was immediate.

“The kids were just beside themselves. The teachers loved it. They told us: please do it again next year. Because the kids really, really loved it.”

The Discovery program also featured a French horn concerto by Strauss and two Bizet suites, including a flute and harp section that drew strong reactions from audiences.

Curtis, who performed in the orchestra across the weekend, said audiences for the Saturday night and Sunday afternoon concerts were “lovely and warm and encouraging”.

“We were so proud of the music and the performance and the audience just loved it,” she said.

Curtis, who has returned to the president’s role after previously serving in 2017–18, said she hopes to raise the orchestra’s public profile.

“I think we’re a bit of an unknown quantity in Lismore,” she said.

“I’m really keen to increase our profile … get our brand out there so that people go, ‘Oh, that’s a Lismore Symphony Orchestra poster’ without even seeing the detail.”

The orchestra, which recently marked its 20th anniversary, stages two concert runs each year and has previously drawn crowds of more than 700 to one-off performances at St Carthage’s Cathedral.

Preparatory materials were sent to schools ahead of the performance, and Curtis said organisers are already considering repeating the schools concert next year.

Two public concerts over the weekend featured an extended program on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.