I didn't know that a bunch of South Americans could make me cry so much. It wasn't just the applause, or the smiles, or the yells, from all around, of pure and utter joy. It was the way they sat, as they gripped their violins, or cellos, or trombones, the way they brandished their bows, the way they stared out at us, happy and proud. And what emerged, as those bows sliced against strings, and as smiling mouths puffed into brass tubes, was a swell of ecstatic sound that could have been the soundtrack to another welcome, a welcome that the whole world was watching.
It was Tuesday night, and if it wasn't Camp Hope, in the electric atmosphere of the Royal Festival Hall it might as well have been. What was on stage looked less like an orchestra and more like a victory parade. There were whole cohorts of double basses, massed battalions of violins. The girls, chic in grey shift dresses and court shoes, looked like extras from Mad Men. The boys, in black trousers and crisp white shirts, looked ready for their first job interview. I was bursting with pride, and I wasn't even their mother.
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