A Fresh Take on Beethoven, Queen Elizabeth Hall

With the new year comes a suitably youthful concert to inspire the next generation of musicians. At only 16, violinist Leia Zhu is the phenomenal young soloist in Beethoven's Violin Concerto, when the London Mozart Players appear at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (Thurs 12 Jan, 7:30PM).

And on the conductor's podium will be another one of the musical world's youngest new stars, Sri Lankan-born Leslie Suganandarajah. He is in demand all over the world, despite being still only in his 20s. Raised in Germany after his family fled civil war, his many posts include that of director at the Salzburg Landestheater, at the heart of Mozart's home town.


Leslie Suganandarajah conducts the London Mozart Players

Catch these two rising stars in a concert that takes a fresh look at the repertoire too. Opening with Jessie Montgomery's Strum for strings, the programme also features Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Four African Dances, arranged by George Morton for violin and chamber orchestra.

And then, prodigious musical talent is the theme again when the orchestra plays Mozart's Paris Symphony No 31. The composer was just 22 when he wrote it.

If proof were needed that classical music is for the young, here is the ideal concert. Click here for tickets.