OAE TOTS: Full of Surprises

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are back at the Royal Festival Hall on Saturday 26 June 2027 with OAE TOTS: Full of Surprises, an interactive family concert for children aged two to five and their grown-ups. It's part of the Southbank Centre's Family Classical Concerts series, and the whole thing is built around getting the little ones as close to the music as possible.

The format is pretty straightforward: you and your kids sit up close to the orchestral musicians and share the stage with a cast of occasionally weird and always wonderful instruments. The audience is encouraged to bring clapping hands and stamping feet to seek out everything from clocks to horses hidden in the music, with the musicians unfolding the experience one sound, tune and twist at a time. This particular session uncovers the surprises Haydn hid in his symphonies, so you'll be listening for the little details tucked into the score.

As for the orchestra itself, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment makes old music new by playing instruments and using techniques from the period in which the music was written. The Independent once called them 'Britain's indisputably best period instrument ensemble', and the band frames it not as an attempt to recreate the past, but as using historic information to create something exciting now. It's that same approach they bring to the TOTS sessions — taking the period instruments and the music of Haydn and turning it into something a toddler can actually get stuck into.

Standard entry starts from £21.50, with concessions available, and it all takes place at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX.