As student conductor Alex Tay raised his baton at the Royal Albert Hall he breathed a sigh of relief.

“At least it’s not as big as it looks on the telly,” the Binfield teenager said to himself at the start of a performance by Bracknell’s Corelli String Orchestra of one of his own works.

“At first it was weird. I stood there and this surreal feeling hit me. Then I realised The Albert Hall isn’t as big as you think it is when you see it on the telly so I was all right.”

Alex, aged 16, was re-living the moment he stood in front of his fellow orchestra members to conduct the first movement of his own string orchestral suite.

“It was great but I am sure it was just luck that I was chosen because my piece fitted into the programme. There were loads of great acts there.

“I do want to be a composer but I wouldn’t say I was there yet.”

Alex, a Year 12 student at Farnborough College, usually plays lead violin with the youth orchestra.

However, he ended up conducting his own music after he was selected by Corelli conductor Sue Black for the Schools Prom event when 3,000 musicians performed over three nights.

Alex said: “Sue asked me if I had composed anything recently and when I said ‘yes’, she said ‘let’s do it’.

“We had a rehearsal and it went quite well. Then for the performance the hall was packed and it was a great atmosphere,” he said.

Alex’s parents Bracknell GP Dr Kem Tay and his mother Yun, from Binfield, were in the audience.

Mrs Tay said: “Watching Alex conduct was wonderful – I had goosebumps all over my body.”

Musicians with the Corelli String Orchestra are selected from schools in the Bracknell and Wokingham areas.