Giving Back
This summer, we are working with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) Resound, Wandsworth Music, and YolanDa Brown to provide unique musical learning opportunities for children and young people. As part of Wandsworth’s London Borough of Culture 2025 celebrations, pupils from local primary schools are collaborating with world-class musicians to compose and perform original music - celebrating community, creativity, and culture through music.
The outreach programme featured 18 sessions with the RPO, engaging pupils in Years 2 to 5 from Sacred Heart RC Primary, St George’s C of E, St Mary’s, and Westbridge Academy. These creative sessions encouraged pupils to explore their musicality and compositional skills, while also offering schools the opportunity to connect and collaborate with one another. In addition, YolanDa Brown delivered two interactive workshops at Griffin Primary School, inspiring 50 pupils in Years 1 and 5 through rhythm, melody, and improvisation.
In total, 150 pupils took part in this inspiring programme, with participants and their families invited to see the RPO and YolanDa perform live at Battersea Park in Concert - bridging classroom creativity with world-class performance.
As with all our ticketed events, sales help us raise funds to enrich lives through investment in active lifestyles, cultural and community events, and the improvement of natural habitats. These council initiatives connect people to each other, to events, to facilities, and to their local spaces.
2024 Outreach with RPO Resound
In 2024, we worked with RPO Resound, the Community and Education branch of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra to facilitate workshops across five local primary schools. For 30 years, RPO Resound has been at the forefront of using music-making to enrich the lives of people in communities across the UK and internationally. The Wandsworth schools chosen were selected as those that may have less resource for music making or instrument lessons and/or those with high proportions of children receiving free school meals. Musicians from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra have personally composed music with these children so they can benefit from experiencing these artforms in depth. Up to 600 young people participated across the various workshops.
RPO Resound spent the early summer visiting St George’s, Sacred Heart, St Mary’s RC, Christ Church, and Falconbrook Primary Schools. Led by musician and educational facilitator Omar Shahryar alongside musicians Sali-Wyn Ryan, RPO Second Violin, Josh Cirtina, RPO Principal Bass Trombone.
The workshops helped the children to learn about classical music and instruments, while they created their own pieces inspired by some of Battersea Park in Concert’s Proms in the Park repertoire. The children were able to harness their creativity and composition skills, and had the opportunity to perform their pieces to classes from other schools in group sessions. In addition, workshops were held at Wandsworth’s Big Play Out summer holiday programme, where children were invited to join a 45-minute-long workshop entitled 'take to the stage' to explore dance, singing and drama through some of the musical numbers that will be performed on stage at In Concert. Children were invited to take part in a craft session, taking inspiration from West End Musicals to create a piece of art depicting themselves on stage. This artwork was subsequently displayed in the festival programme.