The National Youth Orchestra of Ireland has commissioned a new work from Northern Irish composer Philip Hammond, which will receive its first performance under the baton of Finnish conductor Atso Almila on 24 July.

'Carnavalesque,' the composer writes, 'was inspired by an 1854 print by Adolph von Menzel entitled Games in the reign of Johann Georg of Brandenburg in 1592 on exhibition in Somerset House in London and part of the permanent Hermitage collection. The colourfulness and bizarre spectacle of the instrumentalists on parade in that print set me thinking about this piece on a number of different levels. In Carnavalesque, two orchestras are created out of one, linked on the platform by the central aural and visual focus of the percussion section which complements both protagonists as it were, by providing the central rhythmic energy and drive. The title has no specific programmatic relevance to this piece except in so far as the word itself relates the sort of things which I think young people should enjoy when they are young: revelry and entertainment for their own sake with a hint of competition, parody, abandon, and a brief freedom from the strictures of a society weighed down by form, morality and sensible attitudes.'