VIDEO: Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra musicians play Katy Perry and One Direction songs using glasses of water

 
Performance: members of the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra by the River Thames
Rachel Blundy8 January 2014

Members of the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra have swapped their usual instruments for glasses of water in a charity stunt.

The musicians gave a two-hour performance next to the River Thames yesterday, playing hits by Katy Perry, One Direction and Taylor Swift, to highlight the importance of having access to clean water.

The event, organised by WaterAid, was staged after a whopping 174 hours of rehearsals, with 60 hours alone devoted to getting each glass' water level right.

Ben Pope, the orchestra's musical director, said: "It was a new challenge for us making sure that these well known songs translated beautifully when played with water.

Performance: members of the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra by the River Thames

"Water is the world’s most valuable and versatile resource and we hope we have helped highlight this through our music."

According to WaterAid, 768 million people in the world live without safe water - equivalent to one in eight.

Chris Wainwright from the charity said: "These talented musicians have really helped bring water to life through music today.

"This most basic of necessities is the one thing that changes everything for the world’s poorest communities."

Those wishing to show their support for the charity's campaign can text WATER to 70300 to donate £5.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in