Southbank targets new audiences with UK's biggest classical music programme

Multimedia concerts and perfomances by Venezuela's highly-acclaimed youth orchestra aim to draw more young people

Pioneering initiatives to draw young people to classical concerts are among hundreds of events planned by London's Southbank Centre in the UK's biggest classical music programme.

One-hour orchestral performances on Sunday afternoons will offer bite-size tastings of classical fare, drinks will be allowed into more informal events and audiences will be brought closer to musicians by means of a walk-through video installation simulating being on stage with a "virtual" Philharmonia Orchestra.

A raft of such projects, along with concerts by some of the world's foremost classical musicians, have been announced by the Southbank and its resident orchestras for its 2011/12 season in the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and other areas.

Despite buoyant box office figures for its current season, the UK's largest arts centre is all too aware that classical concerts primarily attract older audiences, and it is reaching out to new audiences, breaking down perceptions of what classical music concerts mean.

Marshall Marcus, the Southbank's head of music told the Guardian: "We have audiences who come regularly and have a great time, but we're perfectly aware that classical music can sometimes have an image that's too rigid - that you have to know the music and have to be careful when you clap or cough." Noting that younger audiences can be wooed partly through younger performers, he added: "The stage should be a mirror of society."

While the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment will analyse pieces of music to make them more accessible ahead of their performance, the Philharmonia Orchestra will perform its latest digital project, an "immersive" multimedia performance Holst's The Planets.

It follows the success of its innovative 2009 Rite of Spring performance, which drew packed audiences in the UK. It has just been performed in Li! sbon, wh ere it attracted 14,000 people over a fortnight.

The orchestra has also launched Philharmonia Digital, a new company to expand its digital projects. Richard Slaney, its head, said: "It's a way of exciting [young people] about classical music."

Among more conventional concerts, the Southbank has scored a particular coup in securing a rare visit from the revered Claudio Abbado to conduct Bruckner's Symphony No 5 and other works with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Sir Simon Rattle will conduct the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in rare period instrument performances of Debussy's seminal Prlude l'Aprs-midi d'un Faune and La Mer.

The Venezuelan sensation Gustavo Dudamel and the Simn Bolvar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela return for a week-long residency following their 2009 visit which drew 60,000 visitors to the Royal Festival Hall. The musicians are products of El Sistema, Venezuela 's revolutionary social programme which engages more than 350,000 young people in music, many of them from underprivileged backgrounds.


guardian.co.uk Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds



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