On a beautiful spring day what a treat to be in the City and to see such crowds congregated in shirts sleeves during the lunch hour outside the many historic pubs that abound in this part of the city……….

but in almost every church in London music is ringing out too .And it was indeed refreshing to see a crowd of young musicians in their early twenties sharing their superb talent and evident love of music with us at St Mary at Hill.

Joined together from the Royal Academy of Music and united around Adam Heron for the first of a series to include all the Symphonies of the “local lad” William Boyce (1711-1779).

In a programme today that included Mozart Concerto in C K.415 with Aïda Lahlou as soloist.

Last week it had been Adam Heron who had given a superb solo recital in this church St Mary at Hill.

Aïda Lahlou I had heard too a few months ago in another beautiful church: St James’s Piccadilly where she performed under the eagle eye of Canan Maxton and her Talent Unlimited which aims to give a platform to some of the most talented musicians in London.

Thibault Charrin who gave the world premiere of his violin sonata in the shared recital at St James’s was  the expert recording engineer of today’s concert

A very full church for this first concert of the newly born Boyce Camerata.

Today Adam Heron was wearing his conducting hat and at the piano was his charming companion Aïda Lahlou who gave a beautiful performance of Mozart’s C major Concerto.

One of a trilogy of concerti K 413/414/415 that I still remember in
a magical evening with Fou Ts’ong and the Allegri quartet of the much missed Hugh Maguire.

A beautiful performance in which the sublime slow movement and the slow central section of the final Allegro were realised with great simplicity and sense of style.

Beautifully accompanied by the Camerata and Adam Heron who were listening to every note.

The final Allegro was played with all the charm of the young Mozart and the opening Allegro played with great rhythmic energy and sense of character.

The cadenzas showed off all the command of this very talented young pianist from the Menuhin School (a studentof Marcel Baudet) and now an undergraduate in Cambridge
continuing her studies with Caroline Palmer.

The concert began with Elgar’s very personal tribute to his friend August Jaeger.

A beautifully judged performance in which Adam abandoned the conductor’s baton preferring the much more expressive use of his natural arm and hand movements.

We had actually discussed this a few days earlier at the concert conducted by Vasily Petrenko and we had both agreed on our admiration for his beautiful natural movements .Adam had likened it to Kleiber and I to Giulini.

The brilliant sun light that penetrated the beautiful tall windows of the church seemed to illuminate quite by chance the score that Adam was using.

It was indeed very illuminating to see with what intelligence and passion this young man has created his own ensemble and brought them so happily together with such “joie de vivre” for the simple joy of sharing music with us.

This is something we never ever hear about in the mass media where Brexit or even worse seem to be the only name of the game!

A young engineer too had come to the concert with the urtext edition of the Boyce Symphonies and told me that he was studying conducting and music for the sheer joy of enjoyment!

The first Symphony by Boyce seemed very familiar to me, no idea why.But it was full of Handelian charm and boyancy.

This young ensemble under their conductor played with such sense of enjoyment Listening to each other their ensemble was really quite remarkable .

The Moderato e dolce of the first Symphony was most beautifully shaped.

The Symphony in three short movements lasted about ten minutes – what a difference from the Shostakovich Symphony I had sat through the night before that lasted almost an hour!

The Symphony n. 4 in F completed the programme.
The strange indication noted in the programme by a colleague of Vivace ma non troppo was infact in the urtext as we assertained from our musical engineer!

What a wonderful surprise to find this oasis where people had gathered for the pure joy of sharing the experience of music together.

Hats off to Adam Heron and his friends for showing us what many of our youths are also up to in these bleak days of only terrible reports in the press.

I am reminded of the extraordinary “experiment” in Venezuela and the magic qualities of music for all those that dare to enter.