- Grammy Award nominee Olivia Chaney, RPS Award winners GBSR Duo and Ivor Novello Award winning composer Renell Shaw feature as Artists in Residence
- Focus on British composer Steve Martland
- Premieres and commissions from Sarah Davachi, Beatrice Dillon, Joe Duddell, Jennifer Higdon, Luke Lewis, Dave Maric, Deborah Pritchard, Renell Shaw and Anna Thorvaldsdottir
- New partnership with Ristband Studios who present unique immersive events across opening weekend, combining performance, spatial audio and virtual reality
- Special series from the Brodsky Quartet celebrating their rich history with Kings Place and I Fagiolini marking 40th anniversary
Kings Place today [30 September 2025] announce the first wave of events for Memory Unwrapped, the 18th in the venue’s award-winning series. Starting in January 2026, the series will invite audiences on a journey with artists delving into the past to reimagine the future, uncovering how memory and music can spark transformation and inspire change.
Throughout the series, Memory Unwrapped will explore the extraordinary power of music to stir innermost recollections, to preserve history and to honour the unforgettable – from vibrant stories rooted in the venue’s home of King’s Cross to tributes to the greats of spoken word and song.
Sam McShane, Artistic Director of Kings Place, said: “Music and memory are closely intertwined, offering a powerful means to reflect on the past and inspire the future.
In our year of Memory Unwrapped, we honour the artists and repertoire that have shaped the story of Kings Place Music Foundation, while also introducing new works to spark fresh connections. We are grateful to the artists who bring this vision to life and look forward to sharing performances that illuminate the past as they point towards what lies ahead.”
Artists in Residence
Singer, multi-instrumentalist and Grammy Award nominee Olivia Chaney features as an Artist in Residence for the series. With a wide range of musical influences, Chaney’s music explores inherited trauma, the clash of tradition and modernity and the paradoxes of love. She presents the debut outing of her new folk-rock band, News From Nowhere, performing new arrangements of classic folk songs and picking up where her acclaimed album The Queen of Hearts left off [27 Feb]. Chaney also celebrates her deep connection to the music of Henry Purcell with the London debut of material from her new Purcell album with a star-studded chamber ensemble, uncovering a new, more accessible side to the much-loved baroque composer [27 Jun], as well as ‘Daughters of Memory’, a meditation on the artist and muse, past and present, featuring new material as well as beloved and lesser-known songs from Chaney’s back catalogue [28 Nov].
GBSR Duo – winners of the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award 2025 – are also Artists in Residence for Memory Unwrapped. Known for fearless, intense and boundary-crossing performances, the ensemble – comprised of George Barton on percussion and Siwan Rhys on piano – has built its reputation on exceptional performances of existing piano-percussion repertoire, ambitious new commissions and inventive collaborations.
GBSR Duo’s opening concert for the series features a rare performance of Morton Feldman’s For Philip Guston, an elegy and meditation on time, friendship and memory – the concert also marks Feldman’s centenary and launches the release on Another Timbre of a 6-CD box set with the GBSR Duo and Taylor Maclennan playing all of Morton Feldman’s music for flute, piano and percussion [18 Jan]. The ensemble later returns for a collaboration with visionary electronic composer Beatrice Dillon for a new commission created especially for this performance, presented through the d&b Soundscape system in Hall Two [8 May], as well as the world premiere of a new hour-long work by Sarah Davachi utilising the d&b Enspace system, transforming Hall Two into a completely new acoustic environment [26 Sep], both commissioned by the Kings Place Music Foundation.
Ivor Novello Award winning composer, songwriter and producer Renell Shaw joins the programme as an Artist in Residence. A platinum selling songwriter who has collaborated with artists such as Rudimental, Nile Rogers, Nitin Sawhney and more, Shaw is also the co-creator of Soulful House/Afro Soul project 2fox and has composed music for theatre productions for Shakespeare’s Globe, Music Theatre Wales and Royal Court Theatre. His residency for Memory Unwrapped includes the live premiere of his Ivor Novello Award-winning piece The Windrush Suite – a heartfelt tribute to his Caribbean roots and the trailblazing Windrush generation – along with Echo in the Bones, his follow-up to The Windrush Suite which explores what it means to be Black British through the eyes of the Windrush generation’s children [25 Jun]. Shaw also presents the world premiere of the third and final chapter of The Windrush Suite as part of the series, entitled Remember Us Tomorrow – the piece looks towards the future and explores Afro-Caribbean heritage after three generations in Britain, and is both a love letter to community and a bold act of cultural preservation. A Q&A session with Shaw will also follow the performance [9 Oct].
Both Olivia Chaney and Renell Shaw feature in the opening event of Memory Unwrapped entitled ‘A Night to Remember’, in an artist takeover of the venue for an immersive night of unforgettable music and storytelling. In Hall One, Festival Voices present an hour-long journey named Fragmented Recollection, exploring memory’s shifting nature through sound with music from Philip Glass, Thomas Tallis, Roger Marsh and Ben Nobuto; next door in Hall Two, cutting-edge Ristband Studios collaborate with d&b audiotechnik to present a powerful virtual reality installation delving into collective memory, false moments and how we remember. Chaney presents an intimate set, with Shaw performing with 2fox to curate a soundtrack for the foyer space, with artists presenting genre-spanning tributes to memory through music and spoken word, celebrating icons such as Miles Davis, David Bowie and more [15 Jan].
Composer Focus – Steve Martland
Throughout 2026, Kings Place will celebrate the bold, unconventional voice of British composer Steve Martland. Known for his commitment to music education and accessibility, Martland’s legacy will shape a year of reflection and inspiration, generously supported by The Vaughan Williams Foundation and The Francis Routh Trust. Acclaimed percussionist Colin Currie has a deep connection to the music of Steve Martland – both as a close collaborator and as a performer, having premiered many of his works – and celebrates his legacy in a landmark Kings Place production: a bold, high-octane performance of the music of the Steve Martland Band with the Colin Currie Group, joined by three members of the original Steve Martland Band [17 Apr]. Other performances of Martland’s work throughout the year include the Hebrides Ensemble pairing his Kgakala and Reveille with works by his contemporaries and the next generation of British composers, including a new work by Dave Maric [27 Mar], and the Carice Singers perform Street Songs, one of Martland’s most iconic works, in an evening that explores the connections, mentorship and innovations that define the composer’s world with pieces by Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, Julia Wolfe and the London premiere of a new work from Luke Lewis [14 May].
Premieres and Commissions
New music and commissions form an important part of programming at Kings Place and Memory Unwrapped is no exception, with over 10 premieres currently featuring throughout the series. The Colin Currie Quartet present the world premiere of Joe Duddell’s This Place, These People (a Kings Place Music Foundation commission, generously supported by the Contessa Fund), a new work for percussion quartet and vintage synths, which weaves together personal histories and musical portraiture to shine a light on unsung heroes from the King’s Cross migrant community [31 Jan]. Voces8 and Jack Liebeck showcase another world premiere and Kings Place commission, supported by the Contessa Fund, with a new work from Deborah Pritchard, paired with works by Sir James MacMillan, Caroline Shaw, JS Bach and Paul Drayton’s arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending [24 Sep].
The Attacca Quartet return to Kings Place to perform the UK premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’s Mujer Ángel in a programme that explores music’s response to grief, conflict and transcendence across time, featuring Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 6 and George Crumb’s searing Black Angels [24 Jan]. Grammy-nominated ensemble Neave Trio present the London premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon’s Vivid Green and Zesty Orange, paired with works by Piazzolla [13 Feb], and the Phaedra Ensemble give the UK premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Enigma in a concert that also celebrates the 90th birthday of Steve Reich, featuring some of the composer’s most iconic works including WTC 9/11, Violin Phase and Triple Quartet [20 Mar].
Other highlights
The Brodsky Quartet celebrate their rich artistic history with Kings Place with a series of three concerts, starting with a genre-spanning programme of Frank Sinatra, Barber, Copland, Britten and more with legendary bass-baritone Sir Willard White [20 Feb]. The Quartet return in June with award-winning cellist Laura van der Heijden to perform Schubert’s Quintet [26 Jun] and again in October with a programme that illuminates the power of memory and storytelling in music, with works by Robert Davidson, Golijov, Bartók and Dvořák [1 Oct]. Acclaimed vocal ensemble I Fagiolini celebrate its 40th anniversary with a Kings Place residency, beginning with a composer portrait of Spanish renaissance master Tomás Luis de Victoria [26 Mar] before presenting a semi-staged take on Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, paired with miniatures from King Arthur, Raise, raise the voice and From hardy climes [31 May]. The final concert of the series offers an intimate guide to Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, where I Fagiolini join forces with the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble to explore the intricate details of this work in the acoustic clarity of Hall One [18 Sep].
Kings Place Resident Ensemble Aurora Orchestra join forces with father and daughter duo Brett Dean and Lotte Betts-Dean for ‘Music of Memory’, a varied programme of music that not only celebrates Dean’s 65th birthday but also explores memory with works by Copland, Radiohead, Ives, Boulanger and Dean himself [17 Jan]. Principal players of the Orchestra later present ‘Echoes of Youth’, an evening of chamber music that forms a meditation on youth including Mozart’s Quintet for Piano and Winds K 452, Poulenc’s Sextet and Janáček’s Mládí (Youth) [19 Mar], and the Orchestra return later in the year with the BBC Singers for an evening of Psalms, featuring new settings of psalms texts by Nico Muhly, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms and Bach’s Magnificat, conducted by Nicholas Collon and introduced by writer and author Edmund de Waal [29 Nov]. Other classical highlights include trumpeter Matilda Lloyd collaborating with the Goldmund Quartet to recreate the spirit of a 19th-century musical salon [6 Feb], and Britten Sinfonia and soprano Elizabeth Watts marking 50 years since the death of Benjamin Britten in a programme that focuses on the years he spent in North America during World War II [16 May].
The Solem Quartet also celebrate Steve Reich’s 90th birthday, performing his iconic work Different Trains; they’re also joined by acclaimed vocalist Alice Zawadzki to perform reinterpretations of songs by Kate Bush [14 Mar]. Gavin Bryars – winner of the 2024 Ivors Innovation Award – also celebrates the songs of pop legends such as Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young as well as Kurt Weill, with his Gavin Bryars Ensemble performing his arrangements of iconic works with singer Jess Walker [12 Jun].
Folk highlights include the Sam Sweeney Trio presenting their trademark sound of blending English folk tradition and contemporary energy, performing brand new material as well as works from across Sweeney’s discography [25 Apr], and Kris Drever – one third of award-winning supergroup Lau – plays songs from his new album alongside his storied interpretations of traditional material [26 Apr]. Cardiff-based genre-defying ensemble Slowly Rolling Camera present a rare London performance [17 Jan].
Tickets for the first wave of Memory Unwrapped events are available now on the Kings Place website. More events will be announced in due course.