Earlier this year 15-year-old Roberto Ruisi became the youngest ever leader of the National Youth Orchestra. The young King Edward's School scholar talks to Christopher Morley.

Two days after he turns 16, Edgbaston-based Roberto Ruisi leads the National Youth Orchestra as its youngest-ever concertmaster at Symphony Hall on Wednesday.

We meet in the wonderful new Ruddock Performing Arts Centre at King Edward’s School in Edgbaston, where Roberto has just taken his GCSE’s. Half-Sicilian, he is the youngest of a trio of musicians who have all achieved great success, “though my parents are virtually tone-deaf”, as he comments affectionately before telling me how this prestigious NYO appointment came about.

“I’d been in the NYO for the previous two years, and I decided I’d audition for second violin principal for this year, and then they said ‘we want you to come back tomorrow to audition for leader’ -- which was something I didn’t expect. And it was something of a shock when I got it!”

So how will he exert authority over the bigger guys who may have been in the orchestra longer than he has?

“The orchestra has undergone a change in recent years, under the direction of Sarah Alexander,” he says, “and I think, now that this is my third year, I’ve gained enough experience that if someone has had one year more or two years more, it becomes quite negligible. We’ve all had the same experiences together. I’ll have to re-audition every year up to the age-limit, but hope I’ll be successful!”.

Roberto steps into the leadership of the National Youth Orchestra with a huge work, Messiaen’s ‘Turangalila- Symphonie’, a massive ten-movement celebration of love, life, death and the stars, and something which not so long ago was beyond the competence of many professional orchestras.

“The first two courses in winter and Easter helped me for this. It works for the NYO quite well with its huge orchestra and the fact that it’s so intense. It’s certainly going to be a challenge.”

Vassily Petrenko (whom I’m seen galvanise with his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra an audience in a torpor after a gutless Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra concert with a conductor lacking in personality) is conducting. “We all think of him massively,” says Robbie.

Robbie has been a stellar student at Birmingham Junior Conservatoire, performing and leading in all kinds of concerts, and one of his colleagues there is co-principal of the NYO second violins.

“It’s a really good tribute to the institution, and for King Edward’s, too, which has been really supportive over the years, with some of the best music from a ‘normal’ school that you can get in the country.”

Altogether the King Edward’s Schools in Edgbaston, boys and girls between them, can boast no fewer than five current members of the National Youth Orchestra: brother and sister James and Olivia Kuo, Adam Phillips, Sophie Cheng, and Roberto Ruisi himself. “It’s a really good showing for this place,” says Robbie proudly.

Robbie leads the Symphony Orchestra at Birmingham Junior Conservatoire, where his teacher is Nathaniel Vallois, but goes on to explain how he sometimes does so without a conductor: “I’ve also led many chamber concerts there, which we play usually without a conductor, which is really great, because there’s a lot of pressure on the players, but it’s a really good experience.”

This highly-talented young man would have liked to be a member of the excellent Birmingham Schools’ Symphony Orchestra, but felt he really needed to keep some time for himself after his commitments to the National Youth Orchestra and the King Edward’s Orchestra back at home base. Similarly with the CBSO Youth Orchestra.

“I was thinking about auditioning this year, but then I realised that if I was taking up all of my holiday with the NYO I wouldn’t even have half-term, because that’s when CBSO do it.”

Does Robbie have any role-models, both as violinists in their own right, or as orchestral leaders?

“Soloistically it’s quite difficult, because I look up to all the professionals who have made it, because they’ve obviously done a brilliant job. I’d say one of my favourites would be Itzhak Perlman, just because of the amount of time he’s been around, and the amazing things he’s done. But obviously there are so many: Ivry Gitlis is another one I really look up to.

“I try not to, as much as possible, have people or idols or role-models, because I think it detracts from your own development.”

And how about orchestral leaders? “What I have seen is that there are so many ways of doing it! I’ve seen so many concerts, obviously I’ve seen a lot of the CBSO concerts, and you find yourself kind of studying the leader perhaps more than you should, you forget about the music you’re actually listening to.

“I think it’s a funny thing, leading, because you don’t really know what you’re conveying until things start to come together. I look up to most leaders in the major orchestras, because they always do a great job.”

We agree that ‘concertmaster’ is a much better word to describe the job of the person who sits nearest the audience on the front desk of the first violins, as ‘leader’ both in the United States and much of Europe denotes ‘conductor’.

“But I’m not sure if the NYO would approve!”, smiles this charming, modest, and well-grounded young man.

* The National Youth Orchestra plays at Symphony Hall on Wednesday, August 1 (7.30pm). Details on 0121 780 3333.