We sat down for an exclusive interview with Emme Hensel, co-principal flautist for the National Youth Orchestra’s Spring tour ‘Collide’.
Dates and times for Collide are 9th April 2026 at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, and 11th April at Royal Festival Hall, London, both at 7:30pm – Tickets here
Collide explores huge themes like love, courage and conflict. As a musician, how does it feel to bring such powerful stories to life through your flute?
Being able to bring such powerful stories to life through my flute feels almost like I am becoming the characters in the pieces myself. Not only can I feel the emotions of my characters, but when playing with the rest of the orchestra, I can feel the whole story coming to life around me. Having such a variety of emotions to explore whilst I am playing also adds a lot of excitement, as well as opportunity for creativity and exploration of sound, which I love.
For many teenagers in the audience, this might be their first orchestral concert. What do you hope they feel when they hear the orchestra play?
I hope that the teenagers in the audience who haven’t been exposed to orchestral music before are captivated by the collective power of so many teenage musicians working together to produce something bigger than them. I think that one of the incredible things about orchestral music is the way in which we all have to work together and communicate with each other through our playing, in order to convey emotion to the audience.
NYO offers free tickets for teenagers to make orchestral music accessible. Why do you think it’s important that young people get the chance to experience music like this live?
I think that it is so important that young people get to experience orchestral music because it provides a way for them to connect with others and be a part of a new community. The experience of seeing the orchestra live (as opposed to streaming it at home) will allow them to be immersed in the atmosphere created by the music. This is really exciting as it means that the teenagers can experience the story within the music firsthand, and hopefully get even more enjoyment out of the overall experience!
When you’re performing something as dramatic as Romeo and Juliet, do you feel like you’re telling the story through the music rather than just playing the notes?
I believe that with something as dramatic as Romeo and Juliet, that already has such a well known storyline, we as performers are provided with a vessel to help us pass even more emotion to the audience. This makes it thrilling to play because of the creative element of telling the story as well as playing the notes. Due to the story being so well known, we also have room to provide the audience with our own interpretations of the feelings of characters in certain scenes, which is a lot of fun.
The National Youth Orchestra brings together 160 teenage musicians. What is the energy like when you all perform together on stage?
I think the energy of an orchestra of teenagers, especially when most of us are playing repertoire for the first time, is something incredibly unique and amazing. I hope that with both our playing, and the creative side of NYO with our encores, we can inspire this generation of young people to gain the same enjoyment of classical music that we get to experience through NYO. I love the buzz of making music with such close friends. It’s an amazing feeling to create something so spectacular, that means so much to so many people, with those who you care about a lot. I feel incredibly lucky to get to play with such brilliant musicians, and brilliant people.
You’re performing music inspired by Howl’s Moving Castle, Tristan und Isolde and Romeo and Juliet. Which piece in the programme excites you the most to play and why?
I love that all of the music in the Collide tour tells such vivid stories. It makes the music thrilling to play because it makes you feel like you’re actually playing a part in the story itself. In Romeo and Juliet in particular, I can hear all of the characters, who I knew growing up, coming to life.