 It became the world's largest festival of youth arts before closing in 2018.The Aberdeen festivals would conclude with a combined Festival Orchestra led by internationally known conductors, over the years including Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, Walter Susskind and Leopold Stokowski, as well as then-youthful James Judd and Simon Rattle.The Orchestra went on to appear at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, and as the opening concert of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1978, the first youth orchestra to appear there.