Easter Egg Hunt
Tue 26 Mar 2013
It’s that time of year guys…the time where we celebrate the joys of new life, the warmer weather (ahem) and indulge in far too much foiled confectionery.
So, seeing as we’re sponsored by the lovely chocolatiers Lindt, we thought it was only right to run a chocolate-themed Easter competition.
All you need to do is find the Easter egg hidden somewhere on our website, and when you find it, send its location to us.
In return for your eggceptional hunting, all correct answers will be in with the chance to win a 500g Lindt Easter bunny.
Entries must be in by Thursday 28 March at 3pm and we’ll announce the winner on the same day.
Good luck!
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Name a concert: the results
Thu 6 Dec 2012
You may remember that we asked you for your suggestions for a concert title, for an event in our yet-to-be-announced 2013-2014 London Southbank Centre season. The concert features Brahms’ lyrical Violin Concerto in D and Schumann’s heroic Rhenish Symphony.
There were lots of great suggestions and we’ve picked out our favourite.
Read MoreA Christmas chocolate conundrum
Tue 4 Dec 2012
Chocolate is for life, not just for Christmas…but as it’s that time of year and we have a wonderful sponsor in Lindt, we thought we’d run a festive competition.
Read MoreName a concert. Take two
Sun 25 Nov 2012
Ok, remember a while back we asked for your help in naming a concert? Well as you’ll read from the previous blog, our plans changed, so here we are rerunning the competition….with a fresh new concert for you to name.
Read MoreName an OAE concert…
Mon 15 Oct 2012
Yes, it’s that time of year again, when we turn to you, our trusted audience, to help us name one of our concerts.
Read MoreCutout Competition
Sun 30 Sep 2012
Our Southbank Centre concerts kick off tonight where we’re going all out to prove that Not All Audiences Are The Same, and we want you to help us.
Read MoreQueens, Heroines and Ladykillers: competition winner
Fri 28 Sep 2012
You may remember that we launched a competition a few weeks back, where you could win a night fit for a Queen. Entrants had the chance to win a private box plus interval drinks for the opening night of our Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers season on 30 September at the Southbank Centre, London.
Well, we’ve been reading through the great entries you’ve submitted and we’re very pleased to announce that our winner is: Camelia Borg. She was nominated by her colleague, Maurizio Borgatti at the charity Voice who submitted the following heart-warming entry:
“Hi my heroine is a young care experienced woman called Camelia Borg who is currently volunteering for Voice as a fundraising intern for 3 months. She has overcome an amazing number of difficulties in her young life and yet still has an amazing passion and drive to help other young people in care through her work with Voice. This is her story:
My life’s journey began in Hertfordshire, I was taken into care and moved from area to area, home to home; there’s been so many across the years that I have lost count.
Throughout my childhood I encountered many difficult obstacles and issues, quickly aging me beyond my years. I found myself lost in a system full of promises that weren’t kept. My last Foster Carer introduced me to Voice, as I had many issues and she knew that they were independent and willing to help me. Through the help, advice and guidance from my advocate, I was able to understand and realise that I didn’t have to be another care statistic.
I could never forget that pivotal moment that changed everything for me, and so continued to help Voice through volunteering, to help give something back and be able to help them and others…”
Well done Camelia – a true heroine0 and many thanks to all who entered the competition.
Read MoreQueens, Heroines and Ladykillers: Who’s your heroine?
Mon 10 Sep 2012
Ahead of our Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers series launching on 30 September, celebrating feisty female roles in opera, we’re launching a competition where you could win a night fit for a Queen.
Nominate your personal heroine and you’ll be in with the chance to win your own private box plus interval drinks for the opening night of the Queens, Heroines and Ladykillers season on 30 September at the Southbank Centre, London.
We’ve put together a little video (above) with a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing…
To enter, tell us about your personal heroine in 200 words or less by 26 September and we’ll pick the best entry and announce the winner the following day.
Entries should be submitted to: heroines@oae.co.uk
You can also enter on our Facebook or Twitter pages.
Good luck!
Read MoreEaster Bunnies: Caption Competition
Wed 4 Apr 2012
We’re luckily enough to be sponsored by the lovely chocolatiers Lindt, and this afternoon spotted a few of their rather beautiful chocolate bunnies checking out our upcoming concerts….
The bunnies need a new home for Easter, so we’ll gladly send them onto whoever can supply the best caption to the picture above. Just add your suggestion as a comment.
Deadline for entries is 5pm tomorrow, 5 April.
Read MoreCanary Competition (win tickets!)
Thu 22 Dec 2011
This New Year we’re at our Kings Place base, performing two concerts to mark the end of 2011 (on 31 Dec at 6pm and 1 Jan at 1pm). The programme contains Vivaldi’s evergreen Four Seasons, but also one real curiosity, Telemann’s Canary Cantata. The piece was written as a tribute to Telemann’s pet song-bird, and its full title is ‘Cantata of funeral music for an artistically trained canary-bird whose demise brought the greatest sorrow to his master’. They were obviously very close! To make it even worse the beloved bird was murdered by a cat rather than dying of natural causes 🙁
Here’s a taste of the piece, in this English translation of one of the arias in the cantata:
“O woe! o woe! thrice woe!
My songbird is no more;
To whom can I my loss deplore
to whom can I my painful heartache declare?
Who will now with me my sorrow share”
Plus if you have Spotify you can listen to it here.
We have two tickets to give away to the New Years Eve performance of the concert (details here), which is at 6pm at Kings Place, London.
To be in with a chance to win, simply tell us about your favourite pet, and what you did, or would do, to mark their passing in a fitting style. Add your entries below by midday on 29 December and we’ll announce a winner shortly after.
Read MoreAmazeballs Competition (AKA win chocolate and Night Shift tickets)
Tue 19 Apr 2011
Firstly, apologies for the use of the ‘word’ amazeballs, but it seems to be popular currency in the OAE office at the moment.
So, we are very lucky at the OAE to have an amazing sponsor*, namely Lindt. They supply us with lots of lovely goodies through the year which are used for all sorts of purposes. However we just noticed in the office that we have a bit of an over-supply of the Fondente Lindt Balls. We can’t think why as they’re rather tasty. Anyway, rather than eat them all ourselves and get hideously fat, we thought we’d (obviously) fill up a violin case with them and turn it into a Night Shift competition – the next event of which is just 2 weeks away on 4 May.
The obvious question therefore is – how many Lindt Balls in the violin case?
The person closest to the answer (yes we did count them) will win all the Lindt Balls, plus a couple of tickets to our next Night Shift event. The competition will close on Tuesday 26 April at Midday – so get guessing! Just leave your answer as a comment here or leave an answer over on our OAE or Night Shift Facebook profiles.
*Of course we also have many other fantastic sponsors…
Read MoreCaption Competition: Tell us why Zen isn't looking very, er, Zen and win tickets to Baroque. Contrasted.
Thu 7 Apr 2011
When we did our ‘Green’ picture a while back we saw afterwards that on one of the shots we took our Digital Content Officer, Zen, had a particularly angry/shocked expression on his face…unusual for him given that, as his name suggests, he’s a particularly calm person.
Anyway – what do you think is on the piece of paper he seems to be reading? Or, what’s he thinking of saying? Post your suggestions here and our favourites will receive a pair of tickets to their choice of one of the following events this weekend at Kings Place:
Saturday 9 April at 12.30pm: Sing Baroque! Join OAE Co-Principal Keyboard Steven Devine to sing music by Purcell
Sunday 10 April at 11.30am: Coffee Concert with the OAE Experience Ensemble, directed by Alison Bury – music by Telemann, Boyce, Purcell and Handel.
Deadline for entries is 9pm tomorrow evening.
Read MoreCaption competition
Mon 10 Jan 2011
This pic was taken today at the OAE Academy – a three day training event for members of our Anne and Peter Law OAE Experience scheme (our apprenticeship scheme for young musicians). What on earth was going on?
Read MoreName that concert!
Fri 19 Nov 2010
A re-run of something we did a year or so back that in the end came up trumps.
We give each concert in our Southbank Centre concert season a title – a way of summing up the evening in a few words. They’re (ideally) pithy, witty, perhaps a little irreverant, and should be a good way of grabbing the attention of someone who is skim-reading our brochure or website.
Last year, with your help, we came up with Papa Haydn and Sister Act for our 21 June 2011 concert with Sir Simon Rattle, the Labeque Sisters, Mozart and Haydn. So we’re turning to you again for ideas for this concert which features in our 2011-2012 season – just post your ideas as comments. And if there’s anything super-amazing there may well be a little prize in it…
The concert:
Weber Overture Der Freischutz
Mozart Piano Concerto No.23
Mendelssohn Symphony No.3, Scottish
So put those thinking caps on and get inventive…
Read MoreName your dream team and win…
Wed 13 Oct 2010
Wolfgang Amadeus Madonna anyone?
This week we’re collaborating with the London Sinfonietta on REMIX, a 3-day festival celebrating remixing, reinventing and recyling music. Over three concerts we’re going to be looking at how composers have copied, stolen and taken inspiration from each other.
For example, on Thursday the OAE plays Bach’s version of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, while on Friday the London Sinfonietta play music by Purcell rearranged by John Woolrich, George Benjamin and Oliver Knussen…
So, with this in mind we’re asking you to name what your musical dream team would be. Perhaps you would bring Haydn and Beethoven together, Purcell and Vivaldi, Madonna and Mozart…
Let us know here what two (or more!) composers or musicians you would like to see work together and we’ll be awarding a pair of free tickets to Saturday’s concert, Music as Theft, to whoever comes up with our favourite idea. Oh, and if you’re really bored then you could also submit a pictorial mash-up like ours – there will be extra prizes for that! You can post them on our Facebook Page. Deadline is 5pm this Friday, so get thinking…
William Norris
Read MoreOur blogs birthday! Celebrate with free tickets
Wed 2 Dec 2009
I just realised that yesterday our blog celebrated one year online. It’s been a busy year, and we’ve really enjoyed blogging about the OAE’s activities – and hope you have enjoyed reading! We fully intend to go on in the style and manner in which we have started…
To celebrate we’re giving away a pair of tickets to each of three forthcoming concerts. Simply send us an email here, stating which of the three concerts below you’d like to come to, and we’ll pick winners at random on Friday. Deadline for entries is 9am Friday 4 December.
William Norris, Marketing Director
Saturday 5 December, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, 7pm
Mozart Deconstructed – Marin Alsop explores, deconstructs and conducts Mozart’s Symphony No.40
Saturday 5 December, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, 10pm
The Night Shift – our informal late night concert format with Marin Alsop conducting Mozart Symphony No.40, with presenter Alistair Appleton. Live music pre-show from 9pm and DJ after until 1am
Wednesday 9 December, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, 7.30pm
Haydn’s Creation – Sir Mark Elder conducts, with soloists Sally Matthews, Andrew Kennedy and Neal Davies.
Small print: winners will be picked at random on Friday 4 December, no cash alternative.
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