Every so often a Bangkok cultural story is really a story about the city itself — and this one is a good example. The Royal Bangkok Symphony School (RBSS) recently staged the latest edition of its Sounds Of Wireless chamber music series, and for this instalment it teamed up with the Immanuel Orchestra, a charity music project that has been giving free string tuition to children from Klong Toey, one of the Thai capital's poorest districts, since it was founded in 2000 by Norwegian Lutheran missionaries Solveig and Reverend Dag Johannessen.

The setting alone is worth knowing about. The concert took place on the ground floor of the modernist Kian Gwan Building at 140 Wireless Road, directly opposite the northern edge of Lumpini Park — a handy address if you're staying downtown and fancy something more substantial than a rooftop bar on a Saturday afternoon. The series was set up by RBSS's new director, Dr Tretip Kamolsiri, and runs regular professional-scale chamber concerts in the space.

What made this show special was the deliberate mixing of two very different groups of young musicians: privileged RBSS students and the Immanuel teenagers, performing as a single ensemble of around two dozen players. The programme leaned heavily on Vivaldi — the Concerto for Four Violins, the Double Cello Concerto and Summer from The Four Seasons — plus Haydn's Piano Concerto in D, split between three young pianists, and Grieg's Holberg Suite, chosen as a nod to the orchestra's Norwegian founders. Solo spots were rotated generously between both groups of students, which the review suggests is central to how the project works: no star system, everyone develops at their own pace.

There was genuine theatricality, too. The orchestra opened Pachelbel's Canon with the violins and violas descending the building's spiral staircase one by one while a cellist held down the ground bass — a striking bit of staging that apparently worked. An encore of Bach/Gounod's Ave Maria on solo cello, played in front of a statue of Mary, brought the evening back to the project's devotional roots.

For travellers, this is a reminder that Bangkok's classical scene goes well beyond the big halls. A well-drilled youth orchestra playing at near-professional level, in a handsome piece of 20th-century architecture a short walk from Lumpini's greenery, is exactly the kind of afternoon that gives a city break some texture — and it happens on a schedule (Saturday afternoons) that slots neatly into an itinerary. If you're in town when the next Sounds Of Wireless date falls, it's a low-cost, high-reward cultural stop, with the park and its famous monitor lizards for company beforehand. Details of upcoming dates come via the Royal Bangkok Symphony School.

Story source: Bangkok Post Life.