When Michael Stinton steps out in front of the Thames Vale Youth Orchestra next week, he will celebrate 20 years as their conductor.

By coincidence, he is also marking 25 years as director of music at Abingdon School — and it was his curiosity about what some of his pupils were getting up to on a Monday evening that led to his involvement with the TVYO.

“I went along to a rehearsal to offer support, and was interested,” he recalls. “When the chap who was conducting suddenly said he was stepping down halfway through a term, I got a phone call and was made an offer. I grabbed it!

“A few weeks later I was conducting Shostakovich 10 in the Sheldonian, being recorded by BBC Radio Oxford, so it was a baptism! They seemed to like what I was doing, and I’ve done it ever since!”

Michael is a trained oboist, but teaching and conducting are his great passions. For him, the appeal of the TVYO is that it has so many benefits for its young players.

“Our primary aim is to nurture talent where we see it, but it’s also about seeing youth at their very best,” he says. “When it comes to a concert, they’re well turned out, they’re playing well, they’re very focused. They’re working together, they’re concentrating, and they’re producing wonderful results.

“It’s good for them socially as well. They come from all different backgrounds. We have quite a few overseas students here, too, from Hong Kong and the Far East, and the orchestra’s enriched by that.”

Some of TVYO’s former players have gone on to professional careers, most notably the conductors Daniel Harding and Sian Edwards. But Michael is keen to emphasise the orchestra is not just for budding career musicians — it is for any youngster with sufficient interest and ability.

One of Michael’s chief pleasures over the last two decades has been introducing the young players to some of the great classical works, including Brahms and Tchaikovsky. Next week’s concert will be a typically eclectic programme, from the sublime Prelude to Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel to Bartok’s Hungarian Sketches and Rimsky Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol.

TVYO play at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, next Wednesday (May 9). Visit www.tvyo.co.uk.