That Higher Level

A look at students at the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, created in 1960, as they rehearse and perform their repertoire. One hundred students chosen to take an intensive five-week course, these young people meet, play together, and form an orchestra that then goes on a month-long Canada-wide tour. Linking documentary sequences that capture the institution’s spirit of training with images taken during the tour, the film explores the ties that are woven among the musicians, who form a small community, united by a single tuning fork.