The London Sinfonietta has today announced the first shows of the 2025/26 season. Audiences can expect a diverse range of performances, from a celebration of Pierre Boulez to a collaboration with maximalist jazz musician Marius Neset, as well as new compositions and debuts.
- London Sinfonietta unveils its 2025/26 season, championing pioneering new works, reimagined classics, and bold storytelling. The ensemble presents world and UK premieres alongside landmark pieces from the repertoire. This season will spotlight the next generation of composers and performers through new commissions and premieres, whilst also collaborating with leading artists including saxophonist Marius Neset and composer George Benjamin.
- During the first part of the 2025/26 season, the Ensemble will be touring to Poland, Mexico and Norway internationally, as well as to Malling and Huddersfield in the UK.
- The programme kicks off with the exploration of a compelling phenomenon at the intersection of music and horticulture with a unique outdoor concert happening in the beautiful Story Garden, an oasis in the heart of King’s Cross. Inspired by Fiona Davison’s eponymous book ‘An Almost Impossible Thing’, Ladies in Bloomers (14 September 2025) brings to life the story of pioneering women gardeners, with the London Sinfonietta ensemble, four singers, and on-stage gardeners. The piece is composed by Omri Kochavi.
- Marking the centenary of Pierre Boulez’s birth (5 October 2025) Boulez: Sonic Structures celebrates the intoxicating music of Pierre Boulez at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. With his meticulous, mathematical approach to sound, Boulez dismantled 20th-century music and rewired it, transforming its internal logic. In this concert, the London Sinfonietta explores the chaos within his fixed systems and the volatile consequences of depth and detail.
- The evening opens with a special insight into ‘…explosante fixe…’, as George Benjamin—one of the UK’s greatest living composers—deconstructs the piece live on stage. A longtime champion of Boulez’s work, Benjamin reveals its inner workings with the full ensemble, tracing its evolution from ‘Mémoriale’, the luminous tribute to Igor Stravinsky that later expanded into ‘…explosante fixe….’
- On 20 November 2025, Marius Neset will premiere a new work with the London Sinfonietta at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. Marius Neset has spent the last two decades reimagining the sound palette of contemporary jazz. Known for his ecstatic compositional style, the Norwegian saxophonist takes a defiantly maximalist approach, placing his spontaneous horn playing alongside lush orchestral arrangements. In this concert, his relentless improvisations are accompanied by the pulse and precision of the London Sinfonietta.
- This concert also features a new piece by emerging composer Ashkan Leyegh. Inspired by Persian music, Leyegh’s compositions can be disorientating, like a shredded version of something traditional. He uses live improvisation to make his influences feel ephemeral – a moment in the present, rather than a reference to the past.
- In Grisey: Quatre Chants (28 November 2025) at Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, audiences have a rare opportunity to experience French composer Gérard Grisey’s dark and disorientating ‘Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil’ presented by the London Sinfonietta. This mighty piece offers a journey through intricate collisions of fragmented melody and harmony.
- ‘Quatre chants pour franchir le seuil’, which roughly translates to Four Songs for Crossing the Threshold, explores the boundary between life and death – a significance that is elevated by Grisey’s passing soon after its completion, preventing his attendance at the world premiere of the piece by the London Sinfonietta and George Benjamin in 1999.
- CEO and Artistic Director Andrew Burke says:
We are thrilled to announce the first pieces and performances of our new season with more still to come. We continue to champion avant-garde composers past and present, as well as capturing the zeitgeist with works that address contemporary themes. Our commitment to nurturing the next generation remains as strong as ever, as we support outstanding emerging talent through side-by-side performances and creative composition workshops in schools. Thanks to the generosity of individuals, trusts, and foundations, we are excited about the potential of the London Sinfonietta and how we might be able to expand our reach to share this art form with people in the UK and beyond. Our art form is one that speaks to the lives, stories, and communities of people everywhere – it speaks to the human experience in all its complexity.
London Sinfonietta is entering a period of evolution over the coming two years, supported by Arts Council England’s ‘Transform’ programme and generous financial input from Cockayne for a series of commissions spanning across 2025 to 2027, Jerwood Arts for its support of the Writing the Future programme which evolves work with early career composers, the John Ellerman Foundation and the Garfield Weston Foundation for core support and the Karlsson Játiva Charitable Foundation for its support of successful schools-based Composition Challenges programme. More about each of these projects will be announced soon.