Prodigy of just 11 who’s our youngest orchestra conductor
WHAT he may have lacked in stature he made up for in sheer talent, composure and confidence.
This is 11-year-old Matthew Smith leading a 75-strong orchestra through a faultless rendition of the overture to Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus – making him the youngest conductor ever to take to a professional stage in Britain.
The primary schoolboy conducted the nine-minute piece entirely from memory, leaving a 1,300-strong audience at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham in raptures last night.
As the orchestra played, Matthew’s mother Beverlyn Riley beamed from the dress circle as she took pictures on a camera phone.
Following the performance the orchestra broke out in spontaneous applause, while the rookie conductor said simply: ‘It felt good.’
The schoolboy’s talent was unlocked when he saw two violinists performing at the Pentecostal church he attends with his mother, Beverlyn Riley, four years ago, and told her he wanted to be ‘just like them’.
Mrs Riley, 40, a catering assistant at Nottingham High School, approached the £4,227-a-term school’s senior string teacher Derek Williams – who set Matthew up with a ‘dreadful old violin’ he found in a cupboard.
Matthew automatically placed his fin-
gers in the right place on the instrument and virtually performed a scale in his first lesson.
Mr Williams said that Matthew had ‘music coming out of his pores’.
The schoolboy lives in a terrace home with his mother and brother Daniel, 16, on the outskirts of Nottingham and attends Sneinton Church of England primary school.
Mrs Riley, who is divorced from Matthew’s father Cordova and has since remarried, said she had no idea where Matthew gets his musical ability from, although Mr Smith does play the saxophone for pleasure.
She added: ‘I’m so proud of what Mat- thew has done.’ At last night’s concert Mr Williams told the audience he planned to write to Sir Simon Rattle to highlight Matthew’s talent when the conductor becomes musical director of the London Symphony Orchestra later this year.
Mr Williams, who retired last Easter but has continued to teach Matthew for a nominal fee, said the boy had ‘an inherent natural ability the like of which I have not seen for 30 years’.
Matthew’s talent suggests he could be destined for a long career as a conductor. Daniel Barenboim, the ArgentineIsraeli pianist and conductor was aged 12 when he first conducted an orchestra, while Sir Simon Rattle was 13.