Community Orchestras and Tchaikovsky

The Norwood Symphony Orchestra’s final performance for the year featured pieces* from Borodin, Holst and Vaughan Williams, as well as Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in D major.  This latter piece had bemused me somewhat, as we’d previously been told that the NSO’s own Tinel Dragoi would be playing the solo violin part.  Given the fearsome complexities of this work, I couldn’t really see how a bloke who sits in the second row of a community orchestra could possibly do it justice, but needless to say he did, in fact I thought he turned in a fabulous performance.  Turns out of course that he’s a recent immigrant form Romania, with experience playing orchestras in a number of European countries.  I guess you never know what’s going to turn up in the ranks of a community orchestra.

* repertoire safety index of 5.1