THE Constella Orchestra – a classical ensemble comprising  top music students from across the UK – is emerging as one of the country’s finest young orchestras.

It has made its name with challenging and adventurous programming, and its offering at the Rose Theatre in Kingston on Monday July 15, 10pm is no exception.

Constella will perform Stravinsky’s Soldier's Tale in the first of its ballet collaborations with student dancers. The performance is part of the International Youth Arts Festival, mounted in Kingston this year by Creative Youth. Having left the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the British dancer Jaered Glavin will be creating new choreography for the piece. Narration is by Jason Brown, Saul Boyer and Rachel Maby. Leo Geyer, one of the orchestra’s founders, conducts.

Conductor and composer Leo Geyer was still only in his first year as a student on the joint course at Manchester University and the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), when he and oboist Henry Clay (the company’s Project Manager) decided to form the orchestra in 2011.

He explains their thinking: "Henry and I and a number of others were looking for more orchestral experience in our holidays. The idea came to us of setting up our own orchestra with the aim of showcasing aspiring young musicians in a setting designed to bridge the gap between the world of study and the intensity of professional music making."

The orchestra draws on some of the finest musicians from the UK’s leading conservatoires and university music departments and includes players from such institutions as the RNCM, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.