Orchestra Unwrapped: that’s a wrap!

4 concerts, 5000 students and teachers, 5 teacher training sessions, and 22 in-school workshops.

Our KS2 concert series for our 2024/25 season comes to an end, but what an adventure it was!   

In 2024/25 we took our audiences on an epic adventure through the Nordic region, with our concerts titled Nordic Nature and its Magical Lands, inspired by the music of Sibelius, Grieg, Jesse Montgomery, and Ida Moberg. Presented by the always-amazing Lucy Drever, the theme was based on the Philharmonia’s series, Nordic Soundscapes, presented in the first half of our 2024/25 season. This year, Lucy was joined on stage by BSL Interpreter, Angie Newman. Our concerts in Leicester, London, and Bedford were conducted by Charlotte Politi, working with the Philharmonia for the first time, while for our concert in Basingstoke we welcomed back Kellen Gray, for what was his third season conducting Orchestra Unwrapped.  

It was an absolute triumph. The kids loved it, the atmosphere was incredible, the music was amazing, and Lucy was brilliant.

We started our journey by waking up to Grieg’s Morning Mood, ready for an adventure. Sibelius’s epic tone poem Finlandia set the scene for the landscapes we’d be traversing, and Maria Sigfúsdóttir’s Oceans highlighted the need to protect our oceans. We scaled mountains with Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bald Mountain, and then sat peacefully by a lake as we listened to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

After a quick song break, we sat and watched the Northern Lights dance across the sky with Jesse Montgomery’s Starburst. Finally, we closed the day with Ida Moberg’s Evening, accompanied by artwork sent in by students.

No trip to the Nordic region is complete without a nod to vikings and dragons… so, to wrap up each concert, the Philharmonia delivered a well-received performance of John Powell’s How to Train Your Dragon, a fitting and unforgettable finale to our Nordic adventure! 

One of the highlights of our Orchestra Unwrapped concert series is the ever-popular audience participation piece, which allows our students and teachers (and staff!) to sing along with the orchestra. This year the piece was composed by Charlotte Harding and arranged by the Philharmonia’s very own violinist, Julian Milone. The piece was called I Hear You and was inspired by our theme. The music conjures up images of mountains, lakes, forests, and tundra, with the message that we should all do our part to protect the natural world around us.  

For some of our children, this was a once in a lifetime experience. Some have since shown an interest in seeing more classical music in the future, especially around film scores which they recognize and can relate to.’ – London Teacher 

This year we made a return to The Anvil in Basingstoke for the first time since 2021/22, where we were welcomed by an extremely energetic, enthusiastic, and engaged audience. Our audiences across all our concerts were fantastic! With new and returning schools, we saw primary schools, SEND & post-16 SEND provisions, and home-schooled groups attend our concerts. All our audiences showed attentive listening, fantastic singing (and signing) and a fantastic reception to Lucy and the Philharmonia, which demonstrated that teachers had taken the opportunity to explore both the repertoire and audience participation piece in their classrooms through our associated resources. 

Our teacher training sessions saw over 50 teachers in attendance. Lucy, with the support of members of the Philharmonia, helped them discover various classroom activities they can use to introduce the Orchestra Unwrapped repertoire and the audience participation piece as teachers embraced the challenge of learning and teaching the song, ensuring their students would be fully prepared for an interactive and immersive orchestral experience. 

We also had the pleasure of visiting several schools ahead of their Orchestra Unwrapped concert, led by both members of the Philharmonia and Lucy. It was a fantastic opportunity for our musicians to meet the students coming to concerts through these in-school workshops, where they were able to learn more about the musicians and their instruments, understand what was going to happen during the concert, and create music together based on the theme of Orchestra Unwrapped and some of the repertoire.  

It’s has been a fantastic year for Orchestra Unwrapped and planning has already begun for 2025/26!