LSO Create is a programme for disabled and neurodiverse adults, their supporters and carers. United by a love of music, participants compose, improvise and create music together, alongside LSO musicians, workshop leader Mark Withers and assistive music technology lead, Dav Shiel, with Drake Music, leaders in music, disability and technology.

While the home of the LSO Discovery’s learning and community programme, LSO St Luke’s is undergoing a programme of works and upgrades, LSO Create has partnered with the National Gallery for this special project.

The group have spent time in the Galleries learning about and discussing key works by Rembrandt and then spending time in the Roden Centre for Creative Learning, making the piece for this performance.

Each of the pieces starts and ends with the note D and is named after the painting which inspired it.

Self Portrait at the Age of 34 opens with a quote from Italian Renaissance composer Palestrina’s madrigal ‘Lontan dalla mia diva’, mirroring Rembrandt’s painting of himself in Italian Renaissance costume. It goes on to celebrate the painter at the height of his powers.

A Man seated reading at a Table in a Lofty Room takes us from the peaceful meditation of the man to the captivating patterns of light on the wall above him. This is the only one of these five paintings thought not to be the work of Rembrandt, but by one of his followers.

Belshazzar’s Feast is a journey through suspense to panic and terror as Belshazzar, King of Babylon, reads God’s judgement on him, written by a hand appearing from a cloud: ‘You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.’ 

In Anna and the Blind Tobit, we hear the unchanging background of the flickering fire and Anna’s winding while Anna and Tobit’s internal dialogue is answered by that of their distant son, Tobias.

Self Portrait at the Age of 63 depicts the textures of Rembrandt’s skin. It contains no new music but rather re-combines all that has gone before, slowly fading to a concluding note D.

In addition to the LSO Create performance, a string quartet from the London Symphony Orchestra will play Purcell’s ‘Fantasia a4 in C minor June 19, 1680, Z. 738’ and his ‘Chaconne in G minor’. 

If you require a wheelchair space in the theatre or need any additional assistance to attend the event, please email education@nationalgallery.org.uk