The Genius that was Wolfgang Amadeus Motzart not only filled the Dome Concert Hall on Saturday evening but also raised more than £19,000 for Unicef, enabling more than 48,000 children to be vaccinated against childhood diseases.

Supported by The Argus among others, the Sussex Symphony Orchestra took the audience on a three-hour journey through Motzart's life and his music.

Under the baton of Mark Andrew James and with sopranos Kate Royal and Janis Kelly, bass-baritone Brindley Sherratt as well as clarinetist Michelle Andrews, the concert covered extracts from 18 of the composer's best-loved works.

And on hand to help were the Boundstone Community College Choir, the Sussex Chorus Chamber Choir and the Combined Choir of All Saint's Church, St Peter's Church and St Christopher's School, as well as young musicians from Boundstone Community College, Brighton Youth Orchestra and Dorothy Stringer School.

The narrator was BBC South Today presenter Sally Taylor, who conducted an interview with a red-costumed Mozart played by Jack Tarlton, who was seen as the composer in last year's BBC2 television series.

The orchestra pulled out all the stops to pay tribute to the best composer who ever lived and whose 250th birthday is marked early next year.

This was mature music-making of a high order.

From the opening, the overture to Cosi Fan Tutte, through extracts from three symphonies, marches, church music, the masterly Clarinet Concerto to his final, unfinished, work, the Requiem, this was an event in which the audience emerged bathed in Mozart's magnificent music.

And this was a marvellous opportunity, too, to see soprano Kate Royal in action. This former winner of the Kathleen Ferrier award sang the Allelujah from the Exsultate Jubilata, the Agnus Dei from the Coronation Mass and other items.

She can be seen this coming autumn singing the Countess in the Marriage Of Figaro at Glyndebourne.

And fellow soprano Janis Kelly is another stunning singer. Her reading of the Ave Verum Corpus was majestic and moving.