National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at The Sage Gateshead

The NYO also had the luxury of a top-drawer conductor, Paul Daniel clearly enjoying the buzz of working with some of the most enthusiastic musicians he's likely to have encountered as they launched into the Overture, Waltz and Finale from 'Powder her Face' from the 1995 opera by British composer Thomas Adès.

It's wild, highly coloured music (internet-savvy teenagers will no doubt already know the grubby plot) and came in an exuberant performance, as did the programme's other piece by a living composer, George Benjamin's Dance Figures.

As Daniel pointed out, it contains "some of the quietest music you're likely to hear" - and this is more difficult for a large force to manage successfully than playing loudly. The NYO managed it superbly, though. They do 'loud', too, of course; movement VI 'Hammers', a tremendous wall of sound.

Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances came with lush richness of tone and irrepressible rhythmic vitality while Ravel's La Valse rose magnificently from its misty opening bars to a whirling parody of the Viennese waltz in a performance so unified and vividly detailed you feared the encore could only be an anticlimax.

But then the brass section came up with a brilliant medley of dance tunes, from Bizet's Habanera (the opera, Carmen) to Glenn Miller's swing-style, done with irresistible wit and panache - and even better is the thought that there's more to come over the next few years.