We sat down for an exclusive interview with Enyi Okpara about his upcoming show, The Beautiful Game. Enyi Okpara is the newly appointed Fellow Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2026/27 Season.
The Beautiful Game is at the National Football Museum on the 24th of April. Tickets here.
Conducting on a football pitch flips the usual concert dynamic — how has that changed the way you think about audience, energy, and performance?
In many ways, the dynamic is very similar to being in a football stadium!
I’m a massive Arsenal fan, and one thing I love about Mikel Arteta is his ability to galvanise fans for any big game. Since he started as Arsenal manager, he’s created a sense of unity between the fans and the squad. He made Louis Dunford’s song The Angel (North London Forever), Arsenal’s de facto anthem, to capture the club spirit. He goes on about the fans at the Emirates being the “12th man” on the pitch, and urges us to bring the atmosphere, so much so that we can influence matches.
The relationship between the audience, me, and the wonderful players of Manchester Camerata is very similar. Benjamin Britten used to talk about the holy triangle – the relationship between composer, performer and listener and the need for active participation between all three. We always have the composer doing their bit, and I’m very lucky to be responsible for the performance with the amazing musicians of Manchester Camerata. The crucial role of the audience sometimes doesn’t get as much credit as it should. The audience enables us to sound like musicians. Just like a fanbase allows players to play at their best. For an audience, and like a fanbase, their joy is our joy, their frustration is our frustration, and we’re all part of the same journey. An audience’s energy, expectations and mood can really enhance a performance, in the same way the energy, expectation and mood of fans can influence a football game. I hope that the audience becomes our “12th man.”
Football chants and orchestral music both thrive on collective emotion — where do you see the strongest crossover between the two?
In any football game, phases of play can result in varying emotions in a very short space of time. Anxiety, excitement, nervousness, frustration, joy. It’s the same when you journey through a symphony or concerto, or any piece of music for that matter. The rollercoaster of emotions one experiences listening to a Brahms, Haydn or Shostakovich symphony is the same type of emotion one experiences watching a title-deciding Arsenal, Man United or Liverpool game. They’re a lot more similar than people think!
Along with that, there’s a sense of collectiveness in both orchestral music and football. Both the experience of watching a football match and the experience of going to a concert enable communities that connect people across different spaces and social backgrounds. There’s collective joy at a football game if your team win, in the same way, there’s a collective sense of fulfilment at the end of Beethoven’s 7th. I’ve found that the ability for both football and classical music to foster a sense of community is incredibly special.
This programme blends everything from Sweet Caroline to Eleven — how do you create a coherent musical journey from such different sources?
The programme that we’ve put together can be split into three categories. Classical music is known to football fans because of its use in football. Music by composers who were football fans or used football to inspire their music. And bangers you would hear at a football game!
With the first category, we were keen to show the role that classical music has played in the modern game. We’ll be performing Faure’s Pavane – a piece featured on the soundtrack of the 1998 World Cup. Faure’s music is just one example of this. Handel’s Zadok the Priest was adapted by the composer Tony Britten to create the UEFA Champions League anthem. Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma was sung at the 1990 World Cup. There are so many more classical music snippets in football!
The second category shows that classical musicians can be football fans! And football has been a primary source of inspiration for a lot of music making! You’ll hear music by Elgar, Shostakovich and James MacMillan – all very avid football fans! Elgar was a massive fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers and is widely credited for writing the first-ever football anthem. His love of Wolves was sparked by his friendship with Dora Penny, who was immortalised by the Dorabella variation in his Enigma Variations, which you’ll hear in the concert. Shostakovich was crazy about football and saw it as a way of escaping the pressures of life, living in the Soviet Union. He was a big Zenit St Petersburg fan and a qualified referee. And James MacMillan – one of the world’s most prominent living composers – is a passionate Celtic fan, and his piece Eleven celebrates the eleven players on a pitch.
Songs like Sweet Caroline and Wavin Flag, alongside various football chants, do so well to create a shared sense of identity, solidarity, and loyalty in any football game. I hope that by performing this music, the audience feels a strong sense of belonging to this concert, as they would to a football game!
You came to conducting after studying law — what mindset or skills from that world have unexpectedly shaped your approach on the podium?
When I was a law student at the University of Bristol, I had a personal tutor who used to talk about critical analysis. It involves deeply examining and interpreting a text, concept or work to gain a deeper understanding of its content and implications. He always used to talk about “peeling the onion.” To understand situations or any piece of legal doctrine, you need to strip away the superficial layers to reach the core truth.
I think score study and conducting are very similar. To really understand any piece of music, you have to go beyond the surface-level observations and into specific, detailed analysis. I really enjoy getting into a composer’s mind. At what point in their life are they writing? What’s influencing them? What’s the message they’re trying to tell? And how does that inform why they’ve written what they’ve written? It enables me to get closer to the crux of a piece of music. I recently spent a week conducting the amazing National Children’s Orchestra, where I was asked to do a “Thought for the Day” for these incredibly talented, brilliant, young musicians. Mine was about listening to a wide range of music and always being musically curious. I was trying to stress the importance of always asking questions when you approach any new music and having the drive, curiosity to explore, learn about and understand music. From the mechanics of a single chord to the cultural history of an entire genre. I think that mindset has been partly driven by my legal past and legal analytical way of thinking from my undergrad degree. Weirdly, it’s really informed the way I approach any score! So, thank you to my wonderful personal tutor from all those years ago!
Manchester Camerata is known for its deep community connection — how does that ethos come alive in a project like this?
What’s fantastic about this project is the shared sense of belonging that it creates. A project like this really has something for everyone. From the wide-ranging repertoire to the sheer fact that it’s being performed on a football pitch at the National Football Museum, this concert isn’t just for classical music lovers. It’s also for football fans and anyone with an interest in sport. I think, especially in this day and age, projects that do well to bring communities from different backgrounds and social groups together are so important as they’re forward-facing and really create a level of accessibility. There’s never a sense that anyone wouldn’t belong at a concert like this, and it’s incredible that Manchester Camerata champions this ethos so well!
As a lifelong Arsenal fan, do you approach this concert as a conductor, a supporter, or a bit of both — and does that change how you hear the music?
A bit of both! As a conductor, I’m hoping that we can tease out the varying emotions certain pieces evoke, to show that the journey you go on listening to classical music and watching a game aren’t that dissimilar! As a supporter, one of the great things about being a football fan is that whenever I go to the Emirates, it doesn’t matter what walk of life you come from. You always feel that you belong. There’s a shared sense of unity behind your team and behind the beautiful game. Drawing on those experiences, I hope that I can encourage football fans to feel like they ‘belong’ to any concert hall, be it on a football pitch or wherever. And also proving that classical music can be, in its own special way, its own beautiful game.
The Beautiful Game is at the National Football Museum on the 24th of April. Tickets here.