Hosted by Radio 4 presenter Ab Nieuwdorp, Sunday afternoon was a feast of 'aha, that sounds familiar' moments with pieces ranging from 'Carmen' and 'Romeo and Juliet' to the 'Hungarian Dances No. 5 and No. 6'.

Not that Rector Baaijens felt this surge of recognition when he first saw the musical scores he had been sent. “I had no idea what all those notes meant,” he reveals. But thankfully they were reminiscent of something dear to his heart, "The notes look a little like golf clubs".

He wasn't alone; each of the Maestro participants had their own personal challenges to face. Take councilor List, for example (not to be confused with Liszt, the Hungarian composer, “although my husband's name is actually Frans”). She planned to commence her first musical collaboration with the Ensuite student orchestra with a modest 'Shall we start?' at her first rehearsel. “But I was immediately informed, 'That's not how we do it - an orchestra isn't a democracy '."

Formula 1 car

Having performed her first piece, second-year master's student of Innovation Sciences Evelien Nieuwenburg was advised by the jury that she had to keep the orchestra under her thumb. "You aren't on a rollercoaster, you're driving a Formula 1 car. Keep your foot on that pedal." Although admittedly jury member Jules van Hessen was contradicting himself somewhat as he had already made this statement: “At a certain point the orchestra felt that it was going too slowly and speeded up, but nonetheless you succeeded yet again in forcing them to play at the wrong tempo.”

The jury found itself pleasantly surprised by all the new hand and arm movements the novice conductors brought to their various performances. Cursor reporter Norbine Schalij took the biscuit, earning praise for her breast stroke and back crawl, barrel organ and windmill sail, and excelling with her finger warning, which went into action "sometimes whole minutes before anything was due to happen,” said jury member Van Hessen. “The horn players meanwhile had set up an app group to discuss when they should start.”

Telling-off

With her left hand, councilor List introduced “the dial, as if she were trying to set the orchestra's volume,” said Nieuwdorp, the presenter. "The contestants have amazed me time and again with their ideas and moves," laughed coach and Ensuite's principal conductor Bart Partouns after it was all over. “There are some I'll certainly be adopting.”

The facial expressions of some of the Maestro contestants were similarly striking. From the astonishment on the face of Rector Baaijens “when he realized the members of the orchestra really were waiting for him” to Monique List's commanding gaze. "Oh yes, the orchestra followed your lead - but then you were looking at them so sternly they had no choice. You even wanted to give the concertmaster a telling-off," noted jury member Hilde Kiggen, conductor in the world of (youth) harmony and fanfare orchestras. But, added fellow jury member and Ensuite-founder Paul Hamelinck, “There was clearly no democracy present in this piece, so well done for that.”

More than anything there were smiles all round - on the faces of both the participants (and their supporters in the hall) and the three jury members. Despite the numerous jovial remarks in their assessments, the judges were truly impressed by the participants' courage. They had been prepared to leave their comfort zones far behind them in order to celebrate the eleventh lustrum of student music group Quadrivium (which produced 'Maestro' as a joint effort with Studium Generale).

Staying sharp

This compliment was also well deserved by the fifty members of the Ensuite symphony orchestra, commented cellist Diederik de Vries when asked. “You always have to be on your toes with any new conductor, especially when they have no experience whatsoever.” Laughing: “The choices they make can often be unique. So this was a very good exercise in staying sharp.” And at times the orchestral harmony was tested to the very limit, noted jury member Higgen after Schalij's second piece from ‘Romeo and Juliet’. “At a certain point it seemed as the orchestra itself had been taken over by two rival families.”