MUSIC on the Quantocks has done it again; brought a world renowned chamber orchestra into Somerset’s county town and beguiled, bemused and delighted hundreds in an audience of mainly grey haired baby boomers.

The concert also threw into stark relief the question of what will happen to organisations like the European Union Chamber Orchestra once Brexit is complete?

In St James Church, EUCO played Haydn, Grieg, Mozart, Elgar and a little known piece by Toby Young.

The standard was superb as you would expect from an orchestra founded in 1981 by the European Union which nurtured it with injections of capital until 2004.

By then it had an international reputation and was performing at major concert halls throughout the world.

It has performed in 73 countries and invites greats like Lazar Berman, Nicola Benadetti and Alison Balsom as guest performers.

On Friday, their guest was Benjamin Goldscheider the winner of the BBC Brass Category Final in the 2016 BBC Young Musician Competition. His rendition of Mozart’s Concerto for Horn in E Flat K495 was almost faultless.

An orchestra is either a sublime example of a perfect team working collectively or the ragged producer of a cacophony of discord.

EUCO aspires to the first and represents what happens when people from many nations co-operate.

Ben Goldscheidetr strode into the centre of the nave already trailing the charisma of celebrity.

His eyes sought those of Hans Peter Hoffman, the Director, and an exquisite level of human complicity came present.

He was standing in the middle of nineteen accomplished musicians, drilled to perfection by Hoffman.

Each was poised, eye on eye, bow or horn raised, waited for that second when, with a signal imperceptible to the audience, they would begin.

So First Violins Jacob Reina Caro from Spain and Laura Virtanen from Finland stood shoulder to shoulder eyes locked together until the first stroke of a bow, Kamyl Bydlowska completed a trio of perfection.

As Hoffman from Germany dipped and swayed, Julian Fish from England stood with him synchronising each note.

Viola player Emil Csonka from Hungary and Wouter Huizinga from the Netherlands played too in united partnership. In all eleven countries were represented in the nave that evening.

When Mozart wrote this horn concerto in 1786, unusually he coloured his music sheets with four different coloured inks to guide the orchestra into understanding the emotional shading, intensity and refinements of each part.

This he could not convey just with notes on the page. What he wrote was probably what we heard.

His intention stretched through the centuries into St James because the language of his music knows no national boundaries and stirs us in our hearts no matter what language we speak or where we were born.

So, what happens when Brexit severs the links between us and Europe?

Will Julian Fish and the seven other English musicians in this orchestra still be welcome or will this united group be dismembered in the aftermath.

Will what it represents as an example of seamless co-operation between nations founder because of political machinations?

Or will some deviously inspired means be found to keep them together. At present, nobody knows.

The probability is that it will survive.

EUCO has accepted Music on the Quantocks offer to be its Orchestra in Residence.

This tiny voluntary organisation has so far staged 102 concerts in and around Taunton using village halls, churches and farm barns.

It’s first concert brought a Russian Orthodox Choir to Broomfield Village Hall where the audience watched cricket played on the green during the interval.

Now a group of Music on the Quantocks supporters have formed ArtsTaunton.

This organisation wants to find or create an iconic flexible performance space for events which will bring audiences of all ages to listen to the best in music; classical, jazz and rock.

The vision is that one day Taunton will be a prime regional centre for culture, entertainment and leisure in Somerset, a county currently better known for its cider than its culture.

EUCO as Taunton’s own resident orchestra takes ArtsTaunton one step closer to that goal.

More importantly it provides the orchestra with another permanent link as politicians shake the foundations on which it was built.

Review by Sam Westmacott