UPDATE: Sir Neville Marriner died Oct. 2 at the age of 92. Below is our story from 2015, when he came to L.A. to work with students at the Colburn School.
This Sunday, the student orchestra at the Colburn School — the downtown L.A. conservatory known as the "Juilliard of the West" — will have the opportunity to perform with a classical music legend.
90-year-old Sir Neville Marriner has been rehearsing with musicians who are seven decades his junior. Twenty-year-old violinist Blake Pouliot is one of them. On Jan. 18 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Pouliot will be the soloist for Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto under Marriner’s baton.
The Colburn Orchestra will also be performing Holst's "The Planets."
Sir Neville Marriner was the first music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra back in the late 1960s. That orchestra was backed by a philanthropist named Richard Colburn.
We caught up with Marriner after a recent rehearsal to talk about the upcoming show, working with such budding young musicians and the state of classical music.