Classical Mixtape: A Live Takeover is a live multi-venue takeover of the Southbank Centre, bringing together over 200 musicians from Southbank Centre's six Resident Orchestras for one night only. Presented as a series of live, looping performances running on repeat, the event operates like a live classical mixtape!

In an unprecedented first, the event will see all of the Southbank Centre’s Resident Orchestras – Aurora Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Sinfonietta, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Philharmonia Orchestra – perform across a single night at the multi-arts centre in its 75th anniversary year for a first-of-its-kind event. Chineke! Orchestra will perform with players from Chineke! Junior Orchestra, while the London Sinfonietta will be joined by students from the Royal Academy of Music.

Programme

The night kicks off in the Royal Festival Hall, as the London Philharmonic Orchestra opens with music from Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, followed by Howard Shore’s well-loved symphonic score for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, having featured as the orchestra on the original recording of the film’s score. The finale movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 brings their set to a triumphant and jubilant conclusion.

From there, audiences can begin to mix their experience of the evening’s music as they roam around the Southbank Centre site, with each orchestra performing its 20-minute set on a loop, allowing listeners to choose what to listen to, and the order and number of times to enjoy each performance or individual piece of music.

The live mixtape will feature:

• The London Sinfonietta performing music by American minimalist composer Steve Reich, in the Queen Elizabeth Hall’s underground, industrial Undercroft space.
  
• Chineke! Orchestra presenting a spatially arranged programme that surrounds listeners with instrumental sound in the Royal Festival Hall’s Clore Ballroom. They will perform Margaret Bonds’ Montgomery Variations – a powerful orchestral response to the 1950s’ Montgomery Bus Boycott and an evocation of Black resistance, endurance and dignity in the American South.
  
• The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment performing a brass- and percussion-led programme inspired by Bavarian oompah traditions, presented in a reconstructed alehouse-style setting in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer.
  
• Aurora Orchestra leading a musical adventure in the Purcell Room inspired by Gustav and Alma Mahler’s time in the Austrian Alps, exploring the musical landscapes and imagery associated with their mountain environments.

Following the site-wide performances, audiences return to the Royal Festival Hall for a show-stopping space-themed grand finale led by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Marin Alsop, including selections from John Williams’ Star Wars Suite, and Holst’s The Planets.

Following the live orchestral performances, audiences can stick around to hear more contemporary-classical music favourites from a DJ set, while socialising at the bars of the Royal Festival Hall.