Are all the sopranos here? Has everyone got a folder? Does everyone look as if they're enjoying themselves? If not, can they start faking it?

BACKSTAGE PASS: TARA BRADYtakes a peek behind the scenes with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra

VIOLINS RUN through positions one wasn’t sure existed until now. Corsages and stoles are adjusted with mathematical precision. Cases roomy enough to accommodate double basses or perhaps a compact, bijou kitchen are lined up against every wall. In any orchestra, lugging is always the order of the day. This evening, as the RTÉ Concert Orchestra assemble for a Gilbert and Sullivan recital in the National Concert Hall in Dublin, they have not had to face the most forbidding journey – HQ is only one Dublin postal district away – but the tonnage involved could make for an entertaining round in a Mr Universe contest.

Sixty years into its distinguished history, there’s no evidence of nerves, clamour or heavy lifting around the current incarnation of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. Tonight, they descend the grand staircase backstage in casual, chatty groupings of two and three until suddenly, these dribs and drabs form a vast coven of elegant black silhouettes and restrained murmurs.

Visiting artists from the Glasnevin Musical Society attempt a roll call and some last-minute instructions. Are all the sopranos here? Has everyone got a folder? Is it facing the right way? Does everyone look as if they’re enjoying themselves? If not, can they start faking it right now?

“It’s great fun but you’re constantly working,” says Stephen Kelly, who, having joined the percussion section two months ago, is the newest addition to the orchestra’s 40-strong line up. “You’re always moving on to something different. Tonight there’s a lot of bass drum. Sometimes you’re basically there to scare the audience. Sometimes you’re keeping in check with the vocalists. It keeps you on your toes.”

“Tomorrow we’re on to Eurovision practise,” adds fellow percussionist James Dunne. “We played with Cleo Laine on New Year’s Eve, which was a fantastic experience. This week there’s a lot of recording and then back over here for another concert. We have a 1970s concert with fancy dress. It’s very varied around here. I have a fairly broad taste in music: it helps.”

The already hectic rate of changing repertoires looks set to accelerate over the coming season. Next month, the popular orchestra will mark Bernard Herrmann's centenary with a set of " Music to be Murdered By";they'll turn out for the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival to provide a live score on Rex Ingram's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypseand they'll be launching their Signature Series, a sequence of world-class concerts featuring such diverse guests as Duke Special, Leslie Garrett and Lang Lang.

“We always look forward to guests,” says James Dunne. “You bounce off them. It’s very exciting to bring in that new element and feed off it.”

There is a notion, well known among Suzuki method musicians and fans of Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, that it takes 10,000 hours to master an instrument. Any orchestral player can testify that such a neatly rounded number is rather conservative. Dunne, for example, first wielded the cymbals in his father's concert band at the age of three.

Cellist Yue Tang has, similarly, been plucking and bowing for quite some time. “I had studied piano for a while,” he recalls. “But there’s so much competition among Chinese kids on piano. And my dad just couldn’t listen to the violin strings. So this was a nicer sound.”

And then, just as suddenly as they appeared, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra disappear in the direction of the stage. Happily, all folders appear to be facing in the correct direction and everybody does indeed look as if they are enjoying themselves.

The RTÉ Concert Orchestra Signature Series 2011 begins at the National Concert Hall on February 2nd