{"id":6996,"date":"2026-01-06T11:55:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/?p=6996"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:31:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T23:31:20","slug":"national-youth-orchestra-of-great-britain-performs-city-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/?p=6996","title":{"rendered":"National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain performs City Scenes<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain<\/a>, under conductor Alexandre Bloch, kicked off their Shimmer<\/i> tour\u2014a program which includes City Scenes<\/a>\u2014with a performance at the Barbican Center on January 5th. Concerts in Warwick Centre (January 6) and Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (January 7th) will follow. Reviewers from The Guardian<\/a>, Times<\/a> and Telegraph<\/a> tripped over themselves to compare the music to dead composers they have ready notions about (America + Orchestra + Jazz = Bernstein!). UPDATE more reviews: reviewsgate.com<\/a> and A Young(ish) Perspective<\/a>. PLUS three<\/a>, more<\/a> reviews<\/a>. <\/p>\n

“The Bernstein-brash, neon blare of Karim Al-Zand\u2019s 2006 City Scenes introduced new swagger, a cheeky little phrase hopping around the orchestra like a sonic Artful Dodger, and strings and harps a gleaming foil to streetwise brass and woodwind.\u201d
\nThe Guardian<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

photo by Chris Christodoulou<\/p><\/div>\n

“\u2026urban, Bernstein-ish sound of City Scenes, by Tunisian-born American composer Karim Al-Zand was a breeze, and the delicately \u201cwrong-note\u201d solos from a handful of violins in the dreamy slow movement had a deliciously louche quality.”
\nThe Telegraph<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2026with plenty of chewy textures for the players \u2014 and some nifty solo work slickly delivered by the orchestra\u2019s leader Aki Blendis \u2014 and driven rhythms that have a hint of Shostakovich, but a Shostakovich who has been airlifted from Moscow and taken to Miami for a weekend.
\nThe Times of London<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, under conductor Alexandre Bloch, kicked off their Shimmer tour\u2014a program which includes City Scenes\u2014with a performance at the Barbican Center on January 5th. Concerts in Warwick Centre (January 6) and Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (January 7th) will follow. Reviewers from The Guardian, Times and Telegraph tripped over themselves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,14,18,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-news","category-performances","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6996"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7030,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6996\/revisions\/7030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alzand.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}