Dionysis Grammenos conducts Vaughan Williams, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven — With Noah Bendix-Balgley

Under the skilled baton of their Founder and Artistic Director, Dionysis Grammenos, the Greek Youth Symphony Orchestra makes its debut at London’s iconic St Martin-in-the-Fields church with a stunning program featuring Noah Bendix-Balgley, the First Concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic. The GYSO’s strings open the program with the poignant harmonies and mesmerizing textures of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s breathtaking Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. Next, acclaimed American violinist Bendix-Balgley brings effortless virtuosity and poise to none other than Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, a singular masterpiece and cornerstone of the violin repertoire. Grammenos and the ensemble round out the program with a mighty rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. Despite the young age of its players, the orchestra shows no fear in taking on — and flawlessly executing — what a critic called "a rough-hewn raging beast” after seeing Beethoven’s score for the first time in 1804.