When she was a five-year-old Prue Massey imagined conducting an orchestra.
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![FIRST CHAIR: Violinist Prue Massey. FIRST CHAIR: Violinist Prue Massey.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/storypad-7sBVw3Ku4m48ncBqEY3Yri/874e6472-1021-489b-a95b-864aaf935e93.jpg/r0_0_2071_3111_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
On Saturday she will lead Newcastle Youth Orchestra as concertmaster.
“Basically in a symphony orchestra the concertmaster is first chair, first violin,” said the 24-year-old from Tenambit.
“This all started when I was five.
“I wanted to play. My family is heavily involved with Maitland Gilbert and Sullivan and I would sit by the orchestra with rulers and pretend I was conducting.”
Ms Massey will be joined on stage by artistic director and conductor Jack Machin, the director of music at Hunter Valley Grammar School.
After just 18 months in operation, the orchestra will present the world premiere of a work composed by William Jeffery, the orchestra’s composer in residence.
“This piece, #NYOLO, is my first work for orchestra,” Mr Jeffery said.
“It’s a special piece because its main themes have been with me since I decided that I wanted to be a composer. I just hadn’t yet found the right work for them to be used in.”
The piece was commissioned with the assistance of the Australia Councils New Work grants program and was one of 27 projects that was selected to be funded from 178 submissions in 2014.
The concert will be performed in the Harold Lobb Concert Hall at the Newcastle Conservatorium of Music on Saturday, September 13. Tickets are on sale through Ticketek.