At sea with the LPO: an inspiring and appropriately immersive FUNharmonics Family Concert

United Kingdom Various: Lucy Hollins (presenter), London Philharmonic Orchestra / Juya Shin (conductor). Royal Festival Hall, London, 23.3.2025. (CK)

Poulenc – Marche
Lucy Hollins (arr. Dickman) – Deep Down Under the Sea
René Aubry – The Snail and the Whale (live with film)
Britten – Irish Reel

If you went down to the Southbank last Sunday morning, you were in for a big surprise. The Royal Festival Hall was buzzing. In the Clore Ballroom on Level 2 dozens of children and their parents were being taught to sing a song about the sea. Outside the Sunley Pavilion on Level 3 a long queue waited for their chance to Meet the Orchestra: Harp & Percussion; and in the Foyle Pavilion on the other side of the hall another queue, almost as long, was waiting excitedly for their opportunity to Meet the Orchestra: Brass.

Up on Level 4 it was hands-on: Have a Go: Woodwind in the Green Bar, and Have a Go: Strings in the Blue Bar. Among the stringed instruments that young children were being encouraged to try were two of the most elegant instruments I have ever seen – child-sized cellos (made by Stentor). In all these activities friendly, T-shirted members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra were in action. And up in the Level 5 Function Room players from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment were enabling and encouraging tots in perhaps their first experiences of music.

At midday in the Hall, the main event: an LPO FUNharmonics concert themed around The Snail & the Whale, the popular children’s book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler (the team who gave the world The Gruffalo – though Snail/Whale is a much more resonant and wide-ranging tale). I was there with my daughter Ruth and my granddaughter Rosalind, aged 5 and a huge fan of the book – she brought her soft toy of the eponymous creatures with her and brandished it vigorously at appropriate moments.

The LPO fielded a decent-sized string section, single woodwinds, a pair of horns, a trumpet (the great Paul Beniston, surely?), a trombone, timpani, piano, harp and plenty of percussion: an orchestra large and varied enough to intrigue and to inspire. When we asked Rosalind which of the instruments she would like to play, she unhesitatingly chose the timpani, ‘because they’re so big and make a fabulous noise!’ With Kettle in her name, perhaps this is an appropriate choice for her.

The concert was presented – very engagingly – by Lucy Hollins, with Juya Shin, the LPO’s current Fellow Conductor, on the podium. After a spruce performance of Poulenc’s Marche (from his Deux Marches et un Intermède) Hollins established an instant rapport with the hundreds of children in the audience and organised us all to sing Deep Down Under the Sea (some of it in four parts) – the song we had been learning with Rosie Adediran in the Clore Ballroom. Her challenge ‘There is nothing better than a live orchestra, is there?’ brought enthusiastic agreement.

The show’s centrepiece was a screening of the wonderful Magic Light Pictures film of The Snail and the Whale with René Aubry’s score played live by the orchestra. It was predictably spellbinding; the brass and percussion made the most of the shark attack and the intrusion of the speed boats (an explicit conservation message); harp, piano, glockenspiel and bells conjured an exotic island. Rosalind was entranced throughout. The final orchestral item was Britten’s Irish Reel: a clever choice, as it does what The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra does in briefer and simpler form.

‘More and more, the role of orchestras is giving back, not just playing the concerts and expecting people to turn up as by divine right. If we do that we’ll die, and we’ll deserve to die.’ Sir Simon Rattle back in 1998, reflecting on the importance of music education. As these musicians beamed and waved at the sea of young (and not so young) faces cheering them, they were looking – I hope and expect – at players and audiences of the future.

Axel Scheffler, the book’s illustrator, was in the audience: Rosalind and Ruth managed to grab him for a photo before he disappeared. As we made our way out Ruth asked Rosalind if she would like to go on an adventure over and under the sea. She said yes. ‘Can I come with you?’ Ruth asked. Rosalind considered a moment. ‘Yes, but remember to pack your snorkel.’

Chris Kettle