The world premiere of Blackbird by Orlando Gough was the highlight of last Saturday's American-themed concert in the Oxford Philomusica's Sheldonian Theatre season. Written as a showcase for the Blackbird Leys Choir - the new name for the group created by Fivearts Cities for last year's Five TV series The Singing Estate - in its first conventional' concert on home ground, the piece challenged the singers, now coached by Andrew Stewart, with some complex writing. But they rose to the challenge magnificently, negotiating the syncopated rhythms and multilayered parts with aplomb to give a moving and effective performance.

Leonard Bernstein's suite from West Side Story featured touching performances by 17-year-old Emily Booth, a pupil of Wheatley Park School, as Maria, and 23-year-old tenor Nicky Spence, whose debut album has just appeared on Universal Classics, as Tony. It is easy to underestimate the difficulties inherent in Bernstein's writing, and Spence's voice probably needs to mature for another couple of years before he is fully at ease in this role, which has a demanding range. Despite her youth, the sweet-voiced Booth coped marginally better with the less-than-ideal acoustic environment of the Sheldonian. Both singers gracefully acknowledged that the honours of the night, if volume of applause was a fair measure, went to the Blackbird Leys Choir for its rendition of choral highlights from the show, particularly the characterful soloists in the toe-tapping America. For such inexperienced singers to perform in such a setting with such confidence and style was a remarkable achievement.

Oxford Philomusica music director Marios Papadopoulos was the engaging and accomplished piano soloist in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, while Marie Lloyd established the mood with an alluring clarinet solo. With Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man providing an overture, the programme was perfectly chosen for an evening that saw a welcome and unusual mingling of town and gown in this historic venue. The Philomusica is to be commended for its involvement with the Blackbird Leys Choir, and it is to be hoped that this inaugural collaboration will not be the last.