The shades and hues of the Youth Orchestra of the Americas reverberated in the Church on the Rock, St Andrew, Thursday evening, on the final leg of their Caribbean concert tour.

Under the baton of conductor and music director Carlos Miguel Prieto, the 90-member symphony orchestra presented a veritable feast of musical compositions from Mozart to Marley.

Seated among the strings was Jamaica’s own Gabriel Walters, former student of The Rock’s accomplished maestro Steven Woodham. Jamaican soprano Ana Strachan dazzled the gracious audience with her vocal variety and dexterity, while guest violinist Alexandre Da Costa showed amazing mastery of his instrument, enthralling his audience with his emotive intepretation of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op 35.

The historic engagement was the brainchild of Senator Nigel Clarke, who chairs the National Youth Orchestra of Jamaica. Under the distinguished patronage of the Most Honourable Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, the evening was a youthful celebration of classical greats. Guests, themselves, made several grace notes, making it an occasion of musical memories as they were wide awake in a mid-summer night’s dream.

(PHOTOS: LIONEL ROOKWOOD & TORI HABER)