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 II’s Die Fledermaus – making him the youngest conductor ever to take to a professional stage in Britain.
The primary school pupil conducted the nine-minute piece entirely from memory, leaving a 1,300-strong audience at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham in raptures on Sunday April 02,2017
The schoolboy’s talent was unlocked four years ago when he saw two violinists performing at the Pentecostal church he attends with his mother and told her that 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 instinctively placed his fingers in the correct place on the instrument and virtually performed a scale in his first lesson.
Matthew’s talent suggests he could be destined for a long career as a conductor. Daniel Barenboim, the Argentine-Israeli pianist and conductor was aged 12 when he first conducted an orchestra, while Sir Simon was 13
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