✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Kids
  • Benefits
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Benefits
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Classical Music

St John's Smith Square live concerts: autumn dates

01 Oct 20 – 31 Oct 20, 22 events, start times vary. Duration c1hr, no interval

Soloists and instrumental ensembles take to the stage once more in music familiar and unfamiliar

By Claudia Pritchard on 19/9/2020

Back in business: concert venue St John's Smith Square. Photo: Jamie Lumley
Back in business: concert venue St John's Smith Square. Photo: Jamie Lumley
St John's Smith Square live concerts: autumn dates St John's Smith Square live concerts: autumn dates Claudia Pritchard
Concert-goers can once again settle down in one of the best mid-scale music venues in London. St John's Smith Square reopens its doors on 1 October.


Audience capacity is reduced to 20 per cent, and other safety measures are in place, but there is nothing reduced about the programme, which features concert favourites and less familiar pieces, performed by leading artists.


Events to look out for includes a lunchtime recital by members of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under conductor Jan Latham-Koenig and featuring Mark Bebbington (piano), and baritone Roderick Williams. This magical sequence of music by Poulenc concludes with (appropriately for the masked audience) Le Bal Masqué (Fri 2 Oct, 1PM).


At the end of the piece, said the composer, ‘the audience should be stupefied and exhilarated as though they’d just got off a merry-go-round'.



Roderick Williams, seen here at Grange Park Opera, performs on 2 Oct. Photo: Richard Lewisohn

Revolutions of a different type take place in the mould-breaking late quartets of Beethoven. Hear them in a series of four chamber concerts, The Revolutionary Drawing Room (Sat 3 Oct, Sun 4 Oct; Sat 24 Oct, Sun 25 Oct, all 3PM).


Kristian Bezuidenhout directs the English Concert and soloists including soprano Julia Doyle, countertenors Christopher Lowrey and James Laing, tenors Anthony Gregory and Hugo Hymas, and bass Ashley Riches in Purcell's jubilant Odes for a Queen, including 'Sound the trumpet’ (Tue 6 Oct, 7.30PM).

For nearly 50 years the Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra has bridged the gap between college life and the music profession for orchestral musicians aged 18 to 25. On Wed 14 Oct at 7:30PM, James Blair conducts Young Musician’s Symphony Orchestra in Wagner's Siegfried Idyll and Beethoven's Symphony No 8, in the orchestra's home base, a long-awaited return to music-making together.


Hear the former church's fine organ in a recital that includes the most famous wedding music, Widor's Organ Symphony No 5 , when Peter Holder gives a recital to blast away the blues (Thurs 15 Oct, 1:05PM).



Bass Ashley Riches sings Purcell on 6 Oct


Latham-Koenig is back, this time with the strings of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on Wed 21 Oct, 1:00PM in music by Sir Lennox Berkeley, a new completion by Robert Matthew-Walker of Elgar's unfinished Piano Concerto plus the premiere of Matthew-Walker's Concertante on a Theme of Paganini for piano and double string orchestra.


Euphonia by Rachel Stott takes its name from a story in Berlioz’s Evenings in the Orchestra, which describes a German city in the year 2344, devoted exclusively to music. Composed during lockdown in spring 2020, Euphonia imagines four musicians from this city escaping in a hot air balloon to seek their fortune in London. It is played with a Beethoven quartet at 3PM on Sat 24 Oct.


Dates for November and December, including Christmas music, are to be announced. But for now, the October season concludes with players from the ever-popular Chineke! Orchestra. Chineke! Chamber Ensemble play Samuel Coleridge-Taylor – Four American Spirituals and Schubert's Piano Quintet in A, the Trout (Sat 31 Oct, 2:00PM). At 7:30PM it repeats the Coleridge-Taylor songs, plus Vaughan Williams's Piano Quintet in C minor.


St John's Smith Square joins the many London venues now reopened to live audiences. Its many daytime concerts help music-lovers avoid rush-hour travel while recapturing the thrill of sharing live music-making. Click here for more information and booking.

by Claudia Pritchard

What St John's Smith Square live concerts: autumn dates
Where St John's Smith Square, 30 Smith Square, London , SW1P 3HF | MAP
Nearest tube Victoria (underground)
When 01 Oct 20 – 31 Oct 20, 22 events, start times vary. Duration c1hr, no interval
Price £10-£50
Website Click here for more information and booking



Most popular

James Nesbitt and Charlene McKenna in Bloodlands, BBC One (Photo: BBC)
Bloodlands, BBC One review
Things to do this weekend. Picture: NYCB's Prodigal Son
Things to do in London this weekend: 26 - 28 February
Andra Day in The United States vs Billie Holliday, Sky Cinema (Photo: Sky)
What to watch on TV this week

Editor's Picks

English National Opera on stage for Mozart's Requiem. Photo: Clive Barda
Mozart's Requiem, English National Opera, BBC Two review:
Dalia Stasevska conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra on 13 Dec. Photo: Jarmo Katila
Barbican live concerts this autumn
The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment plays live at its home base, Kings Place
Kings Place, autumn concerts live
Aurora Orchestra will play Beethoven's Symphony No 7 outdoors to a live audience
Aurora Orchestra: Beethoven live, with live audience
The Snowman is screened with live orchestral music on 21 Dec at Cadogan Hall. Artwork: Snowman Enterprises Ltd
Cadogan Hall live: music for an audience of 300
Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva founded and appear in the London Piano Festival. Photo: Sim Canetty-Clarke
London Piano Festival 2020, Kings Place
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

St John's Smith Square

Elgar

Beethoven

Chineke!

Roderick Williams

Ashley Riches

Christmas



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×