The Southbank Centre Announces Part One of its Classical Music Programme For 2021/22

The Southbank Centre today raises the curtain on its 2021/22 classical music programme, announcing the first events in its calendar for Autumn/Winter (September 2021 - January 2022).

After nearly two curtailed seasons, the UK's largest multi-arts centre, home to three outstanding performance spaces and creative, outdoor civic spaces, will proudly welcome back audiences to over 200 concerts over nine months.

Alongside our family of eight world-class orchestras, 2021/22 includes boundary-pushing associate artists Colin Currie Group, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Víkingur Ólafsson, international orchestral visitors and two new UK-based artistic partners Manchester Collective and The Multi-Story Orchestra. This ambitious programme will both celebrate everything that the Southbank Centre has always stood for and signal a new future for the genre as the sector responds to a changed world post-pandemic.

The programme begins with an unmissable opening week broadcast across BBC Radio 3, starting with Tippett's rarely-performed The Midsummer Marriage with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner, and concludes with a semi-staged presentation of Wagner's Parsifal with Opera North next June, the culmination of the touring opera's major UK production.

New for next year will be a selection of late night events in the Purcell Room and two key strands for families and contemporary audiences with programming that breaks ground and plays with formats. The programme will also see the return of the Southbank Centre's popular series for piano, chamber music and international touring projects, as well as diverse new music festivals including Soundstate and New Music Biennial and composer-themed celebrations centred on Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Vivier and Strauss in Part 2 from February - July. The EJG London Jazz Festival also returns with the BBC Concert Orchestra and trailblazing trumpeter Yazz Ahmed and much more across the Southbank Centre this Autumn.

As it continues to emerge from closure, the Southbank Centre will demonstrate that the future of classical music is in collaboration. The venue and all of its orchestras have joined together for the first time to present a unified 'multi-buy' offer for the majority of its concerts, allowing audiences to curate their own journey through the rich and varied programme. Later this year, it will unveil cross-organisational audience development and programming initiatives alongside Part 2 of the programme from February - June 2022.

As part of this commitment, the Southbank Centre has joined forces with six major international venues from New York to Tokyo for a major co-commission for Steve Reich. Traveler's Prayer is a seismic new project in which the rhythms of Hebrew psalm texts bring a new fluidity to his musical patterns. This builds on the venue's legacy for collaboration across borders for landmark cultural moments.

Meanwhile, a focus on humanity's relationship with nature, exploring moral responsibility and psychological experience, draws a continuous thread: there's the Philharmonia Orchestra's Human/Nature series, a screening and orchestral treatment of Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance with Philip Glass Ensemble and the Philharmonia (a co-promotion with the Southbank Centre), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment's 'The Wilderness Pleases' and Chineke!'s Song of the Prophets.

Edward Gardner and Santtu-Matias Rouvali have their first appearances in their respective roles as Principal Conductors of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Philharmonia Orchestra in September. Karina Canellakis debuts in her new titled position as Principal Guest Conductor of the LPO and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra comes with five special projects under their new Music Director Vasily Petrenko.

Additional new music highlights in Part 1 include: 5 world, 3 UK and 1 London premiere, from the likes of Steve Reich, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Bryce Dessner and Isobel Waller-Bridge. 18 women composers will be reflected in 'Part 1', including New Yorker Jessie Montgomery who featured in the Southbank Centre's highly-successful online 'Inside Out' series.

The Southbank Centre continues to cultivate its digital audiences who have been so supportive of the classical music programme throughout closure - further details will be announced in due course. Meanwhile, the orchestras continue to broadcast content: the Philharmonia Orchestra will stream the first and last events in their Human / Nature season; the LPO continues its partnership with Marquee TV, streaming at least 10 RFH concerts with deferred broadcast and initial free access for all; the OAE will present content and hybrid event experiences on OAE Player; and the London Sinfonietta and Chineke! will stream all events on YouTube.

Gillian Moore CBE, Director of Music and Performing Arts, Southbank Centre, said:
"For so long we have missed that alchemical spark which happens when performers and audiences come together in a concert hall, so it is wonderful finally to be able to announce an autumn classical music programme at Southbank Centre. Central to our programme will be the work of our family of orchestras, whose creativity has been extraordinary over the past eighteen months. We are working with them and with an array of like-minded artists to make sure that we bring what we've learned from these times and create programmes which welcome and excite the widest possible audience. Musicians and audiences may have missed each other, but classical music at Southbank is emerging in better shape than it has ever been, with major collaborations, game-changing artists and new thinking."

Toks Dada, Head of Classical Music, Southbank Centre, said:
"As we emerge into a changed world, it is vital that we begin to re-imagine a new future for classical music, with a focus on engaging the widest possible audience, supporting a broad range of artists, and pushing forward the artform. At Southbank Centre we're starting by forging new artistic relationships with forward-thinking home-grown artists and ensembles, commissioning new work from unheard and established voices, and creating new experiences and formats that welcome back families and contemporary audiences familiar with the centre, as well as reach audiences new to the centre.

The past year has emphasised that we are stronger when we work together. In collaboration with our entire family of orchestras, we're thinking differently about how we present classical music and, for the first time, putting the power in the hands of the audience with our new joined up 'multi-buy' offer across the entire programme. This will allow the audience to curate their own journey through the diverse programme, irrespective of the orchestra, strand or series. Later in the year, we will unveil more plans that further enhance and amplify the work of our family of orchestras. We look forward to announcing the next part of our programme. This is just the beginning."

For Southbank Centre Members and Supporters Circles, booking opens at 10am on Tuesday 6 July. General booking opens from 10am on Thursday 8 July.

Learn more about the full lineup at the Southbank Centre website.

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