With Carlos Miguel Prieto in charge of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain’s spring tour, it was no surprise that their programme included a work from the Mexican conductor’s own tradition. In fact, there were two.

The opener was a suite by Silvestre Revueltas, drawn from his score for the 1939 film Night of the Mayas, which if anything magnifies the exuberance of the more familiar Mexican folk-dance rhythms of José Pablo Moncayo’s Huapango – a brilliant encore that set the seal on an evening of extraordinarily focused and yet entirely spontaneous-sounding music-making.

The players – 164 of them, aged between 13 and 19 – clearly enjoyed both pieces, relishing the offbeat rhythms, vibrant colours and sheer entertainment value of music bursting with energy. The NYO’s innumerable percussionists covered themselves in glory.

But there are no weak departments in this orchestra, which consistently maintained discipline and impressive tonal qualities under Prieto’s measured beat.

The other two items were by Shostakovich – intensely serious and demanding works that benefited from the conductor’s concentration on steady pacing rather than hell-for-leather optimism. The dark tensions of the mighty Fifth Symphony were realised with refulgent string tone, characterful woodwind solos and blazing brass, the individual players working together as a formidable unit.

Seventeen-year-old Sheku Kanneh-Mason joined them for the First Cello Concerto – the piece that brought him success as the 2016 BBC Young Musician of the Year. Technically superb and eloquent in his expressivity, he held the capacity audience spellbound with an interpretation of exceptional authority.