We deliver performance and education projects across Lambeth all year round. Here are some of our projects:

Estates Tours

Our flagship project is our Estates Tours, which we started in Dec 2018. Each December & July we bring a small orchestra to perform a varied programme on 12 housing estates across Lambeth. The Summer Tour takes place outdoors, in grassy gardens or in the amphitheatre-like central spaces on estates surrounded by balconied tower blocks. The Christmas Tour takes place in community halls or youth centres. Performances are usually integrated into residents’ existing events, with the whole community coming together in celebration. This way we can make sure we have as large an impact as possible and we can enhance the efforts already made by leaders to establish positive connections and experiences.

We assemble an hour-long eclectic programme of music in diverse genres which have included swing, waltzes and polkas, baroque dances, grime and hip hop, overtures and intermezzi, folk music from various traditions, symphonic movements, disco, musical theatre, samba, pop and rock songs, and many more. The ensemble is 23-28 people, and we are joined by singers and rappers. Audience participation is a key element of these performances, as we invite residents up to perform with the orchestra in open-mic sessions. Rappers, singers, dancers, poets and instrumentalists volunteer to perform something - sometimes on a backing beat we have prepared, and other times with their own material which we improvise around.

Education Workshops

In the month before these tours, we deliver meet the orchestra workshops to schools which are on or near the estates we visit. This enables us to signpost interested young people to an upcoming performance, and through them we can get their parents along too. From the acting Head of Music Andrew Hiles at Evelynn Grace Academy, December 2022: The concert was a huge success… The students were really buzzing at the gates today. The programme was well balanced and varied and the students were really engaged and interested. I think they will remember your concert for a long time and will be inspired in their own music making. We all appreciate the work you are doing in the local community and believe it has enormous impact and benefit to all involved.

Pop-up Performances

You can regularly find BCO performing out on the markets, high street, parks, gardens, pubs and clubs of Brixton. We do not hesitate to pitch up and get going with no infrastructure at all. We have been touched by the welcome we get from regular users – particularly on the market – where traders are very happy to turn down their music and enjoy live performance. We are also often taken aback at how many people stop to listen for 10 minutes or more. Of course, we attract some interesting characters, but that is all part of being in Brixton! In the last five years we have given 30 such pop-up performances, from string quartets to brass groups to small orchestras.

Concerts

We give at least three full orchestral concerts per year for which we field mixed-ability ensembles, with professionals, students and volunteers playing side by side. We regularly hold open auditions for all instrumentalists. Because our work is project based, without weekly rehearsals, we can provide performance opportunities for people whose jobs or personal situation means they couldn’t make a weekly commitment. We have several members who joined having restarted playing their instrument after some years off, some citing a BCO performances as the reason for re-engagement. Outdoor opera galas in August are now a regular part of the season, and this year we will be performing a concert on Brixton Recreation Centre concourse.

We always ensure we perform something by a historically marginalised composer in each concert. In 2023 we are commissioning Ben Kwasi Burrell to compose an original piece for steel pans and orchestra to mark the 75th anniversary of the sailing of HMS Windrush. A regular collaboration we have is with Brixton SDA church, where in 2019 we gave a concert including music by Mendelssohn, Haydn and Mahler alongside gospel music performed with their choir – an unforgettably experience for the orchestra and most of the 300 people present (95% of whom were BME and 70% of whom were not regular classical concertgoers, as estimated by church leaders).

Student Positions

We offer student positions in the orchestra to local talented 16–25-year-olds who have not (yet) gone to music college. We pay their expenses and sometimes small fees to take part – in contrast to most other groups they could join which would ask for subscription fees. We also pay for them to have lessons in music theory or on their instrument, where this would greatly enhance their playing and ability to get further work or win a place at an academy or college for further study.

Grime Orchestrated

One of our most successful projects in Grime Orchestrated, where MCs and an 18-piece orchestra unite in performances of exceptional energy, power and spontaneity. The set consists of: original beats by members of the orchestra; beats we have adapted from well-known classical repertoire; our own versions of genre-defining classic beats; and orchestrations of original songs by the rappers we are featuring. This project goes out to festivals and commercial music venues all over the country and features in most of our community performances too. We regularly perform at Brixton’s famous Hootananny venue. In the next 18 months we will be making an album of rap beats all adapted from classical music.

Music Trails

This is an original concept which turns a classical concert into a participatory outdoor game. The orchestra is split into chamber groups which are placed around a defined area, such as a town centre or a park. The audience participate by finding all the groups and checking them off of a map. When they correctly identify the group and location, a clue is revealed. The clues lead to a secret location for a finale performance where the whole orchestra comes together. We have given Music Trails in Brixton Town Centre and Streatham High Street. In September 2023 we will deliver a large Music Trail in Brockwell Park.

Roving Band

Originally set up to provide live music whilst adhering to lockdown restrictions, this mobile 6-piece ensemble went down a storm with residents as we paraded down Brixton’s plentiful pedestrianised streets. Since then, we have done regular parades, on estates and down leafy roads, delighting (most of) those who cross our path. This is the ensemble we most often roll out when invited to perform at various community occasions as it is so versatile and uncomplicated to deploy.

Effra Residency

An exciting development in 2023 is our new residency at the Effra Tavern – the top spot for live jazz in the area. We give a monthly chamber recital on the 2nd Sunday of every month, deploying groups from percussion quartet to wind quintet, string quartet to a baroque ensemble. With this project we expect to impact 1000 people who, though being regulars at jazz jams, may not have been to a live classical chamber music concert before.