LPO Showcase: Crisis Creates

LPO Showcase: Crisis Creates comes to the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday 7 April 2027, starting at 6.00pm. It's a free concert, and you don't need to book a seat, so you can just turn up. The performance runs for about an hour.

The music on stage is the result of Crisis Creates, a project the London Philharmonic Orchestra runs with the national charity Crisis UK. It's open to adults who have experienced or are at risk of homelessness, and it gives them a creative outlet to work with. Over five days of workshops, participants write their own original music and lyrics alongside LPO musicians and a workshop leader, using the Orchestra's own repertoire as a starting point. The whole thing is about improving wellbeing and confidence through self-expression, collaboration and learning new creative skills, and about fighting the isolation that comes with precarious living situations.

That group then brings its work to the Royal Festival Hall stage in this free public concert, with friends and family welcome. The performance is professionally filmed, so the participants have a record of what they created to keep. It's a short show — about an hour — and it's free to attend, with no booking required. If you're bringing children, it's for ages 7 and up, and under-12s need to be accompanied by an adult. There's also a full LPO concert later that same night, so if you're already down at the Southbank Centre, you can make an evening of it. The Royal Festival Hall is at the Southbank Centre on Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX.