Christopher Morley looks forward to a series of concerts featuring future stars of the classical world.

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Young musicians from all over the country will be descending on Birmingham during the next few weeks.

Next Thursday the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain makes one of its frequent and highly popular visits to Symphony Hall, bringing an enticing programme of music from the last 100 years.

Almost the oldest offering on the menu is Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, premiered in Paris as a shock-making ballet in 1913, and with a score still possessing the capacity to disturb even today. Though now almost a repertoire piece, it continues to put conductors and orchestras on their mettle, let alone a youth orchestra.

And the NYO has a proud history of performing the work, including a famous recording made in the 1970s conducted by a very young Simon Rattle, still in those days a tousle-haired scouser.

The Merseyside connection is maintained this time round, with Vasily Petrenko, principal conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, on the podium.

Just beating The Rite of Spring in longevity on this programme is Ravel's Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, written for piano in 1911 and orchestrated by the composer a year later. The music has a distinct air of decadence about it, and the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss also breathe a message of decay.

But this time, the sense of farewell is serene and accepting, in this last major work (written in 1948) of an octogenarian composer who had lived through various wars, including the First and Second World Wars. The soprano soloist in next Thursday's performance is Gabriele Fontana, immensely experienced in Mozart and Wagner, as well as in Strauss himself.

Thursday's concert also features the second performance of Mark Simpson's Threads for Orchestra. This 10-minute piece by the BBC Young Musician of the Year receives its premiere two days earlier when the NYO begins its short tour at the Sage in Gateshead (it ends at London's Barbican a week tomorrow).

Before the main concert at Symphony Hall on Thursday listeners can enjoy SWING, a free concert by award-winning young NYO composers, inspired by dance rhythms (6pm).

Two days later, on Saturday April 5, the CBSO Centre in Berkley Street hosts a visit from the National Youth Wind Orchestra of Great Britain. No connection with the National Youth Orchestra, but this ensemble draws its young members from a similar catchment area, including the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales, as well as England.

Peter Bassano, whose ancestors made music at the court of King Henry VIII, conducts a programme dominated by Prokofiev, but also including the Trumpet Concerto by Arutiunian, and David Bedford's Sun Paints Rainbows.

On the following weekend, it's the turn of the National Children's Orchestra to display its talents when it performs a programme of English music at Birmingham Town Hall (April 12).

Handel launches the evening - yes, Handel, not only admitted as an honorary Englishman, but also because the work in question is his Overture in D minor, orchestrated by Elgar. No other Elgar on the menu (might place a bet on an encore, though), which continues with Walton's Henry V Suite, Finzi's Elegy: the Fall of the Leaf, Malcolm Arnold's Tam O'Shanter Overture and Vaughan Williams epic Job - A Masque for Dancing. Hilary Davan Wetton, founder of the much-respected Milton Keynes Chamber Orchestra, conducts.

This concert will be from the NCO "main" orchestra, none of its 100-plus members older than 14. Over the 30 years of the NCO's existence the number of ancillary ensembles has grown, so that now there is also the under-13 Orchestra (which also gives public concerts), under-12 and under-11 Orchestras, and a Training Orchestra with an age-range of seven to 10.

Later in the year (August 23) the Under-13 Orchestra comes to Birmingham Town Hall, and just over a week later the main NCO arrives at Symphony Hall for a 30th Anniversary Gala Concert.

But prestigious concerts in Birmingham are not only the province of gifted young instrumentalists. The singers get a look-in too, with the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain celebrating their 25th anniversary with a Gala Concert at Symphony Hall on April 13.

All seven National Youth Choirs - the National Youth Choir itself, plus North and South branches of the NY Training Choir as well as separate choirs for girls and boys - will be performing in an evening which includes a world premiere by the acclaimed choral composer Eric Whitacre.

Mike Brewer OBE will lead the evening, which also features guest appearances from the King's Singers, composers Bob Chilcott (himself an ex-King's Singer) and John Rutter, and conductors Sir David Willcocks and David Hill.

* National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at Symphony Hall on April 3 (7.30pm, 0121 780 3333).

National Youth Wind Orchestra at the CBSO Centre on April 5 (7.30pm, 0121 767 4050).

National Children's Orchestra of Great Britain at Birmingham Town Hall on April 12 (3pm, 0121 780 3333).

National Youth Choirs of Great Britain at Symphony Hall on April 13 (7pm, 0121 780 3333).