Chineke! Junior Orchestra perform at Southbank Centre’s 19th Imagine Children’s Festival in February 2020.

The largest festival of its kind in the UK, Imagine Children’s Festival is dedicated to families experiencing and enjoying all kinds of art and culture together.

Get familiar with all the instruments involved in building a story and watch as the orchestra creates a fantastical scene in this FREE concert at Royal Festival Hall.

The Chineke! Junior Orchestra invites you to explore the story of George Polgreen Bridgetower, a violin prodigy who played his debut solo concert when he was 9 years old. Why is Bridgetower's name relatively unknown even though he was a huge hit in his time, a pupil of Joseph Haydn and a friend to Beethoven?

Illustrating Bridgetower's stellar career as a young boy, touring across the royal courts of Europe, the Chineke! Juniors will play music from Haydn's Symphony No.85, Handel's Messiah and Beethoven's 8th Symphony and his famous 'Kreutzer' Sonata which was originally written and dedicated to Bridgetower.

11 am and 1.45 pm

Approx running time: 75 mins

Royal Festival Hall

The Clore Ballroom, Level 2