South Riverside Music Partnership Massed Ensemble backstage at the Schools Prom

"There's not much room for the audience," says conductor Timothy Redmond of his group tonight, the South Riverside Music Partnership Massed Ensemble. The performers tonight are drawn form schools across four south London boroughs.

Among them are an orchestra, a band called Animate, the choir ("It goes on forever," says Redmond), and a beatboxer. 

Kerry Andrew, the award-winning composer who wrote tonight's piece, The London Breed, took her inspiration from Benjamin Zephaniah's poem of the same name. "I took that poem into Animate and some schools and got them to write new words in response to the poem," she says.  

With its strong London flavour, the poem has provided the perfect inspiration, and showcases the enormous diversity of talent amongst young people from south London.