From a 2,500-Mile Cycle Ride to Brazilian Jazz: Music to Hear at Kings Place This Summer
Graham Fitkin’s tree-inspired new work, Scottish folk, jazz, contemporary music and ten new compositions are among the highlights at the King’s Cross venue this July and August.
If you want to hear something different without travelling across London, Kings Place has a good reason to stay around King’s Cross this summer. Its July and August programme moves between classical, jazz, folk and contemporary music, with young musicians, established artists and some less conventional projects sharing the programme.
Here are some of the highlights.
A musical journey through the forest
On 23 July, composer Graham Fitkin brings Treeline to Hall One, marking the end of a 2,500-mile cycle journey from Romania back to the UK.
The journey took Fitkin through communities from the Carpathian Mountains to Epping Forest, collecting data and sounds from specific trees along the way. Those recordings and data have been woven into a new work for piano and keyscanner.
The concert is the final part of the project, bringing the material collected on the journey back to the stage.
Graham Fitkin: Treeline
23 July, 7.30pm | Hall One | £18–£25
Jazz with a darker edge
Empirical launch their eighth album, Like Lambs: To The Slaughter, on 3 July. The album takes the form of a continuous 51-minute piece, originally developed during the pandemic.
Its subject is the tension between independent thought and herd behaviour, and the line between innocence and ignorance. For the Kings Place performance, the ensemble is joined by pianist Ivo Neame and guitarist David Preston.
Empirical featuring Ivo Neame and David Preston
3 July, 8pm | Hall Two | £25
Brazilian music from a key figure in MPB
Brazilian guitarist and composer Toninho Horta comes to Hall One on 5 July. Horta was part of the Clube da Esquina circle in Minas Gerais in the late 1960s, working alongside Milton Nascimento and contributing to the influential 1972 album Clube da Esquina.
His music brings together Brazilian traditions with influences from rock and other styles.
Toninho Horta
5 July, 8pm | Hall One | £25–£40
Young musicians at the start of their careers
The summer programme also has several performances centred on emerging musicians.
The Yehudi Menuhin School’s graduating students give their final performance on 2 July, with a programme that includes Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Sally Beamish and Stephen Dodgson.
Later in July, the IGF Guitar Summit brings together performers including flamenco guitarist Pedro Navarro, Welsh-Ghanaian singer-songwriter Adjua Mensah and Syrian oud player Rihab Azar. A Ukrainian clarinet and guitar duo, Maryna Vosmirova and Serhii Udod, will perform a programme of tango, Eastern European folk and contemporary music, including the world premiere of a new IGF commission by Freya Waley-Cohen.
Yehudi Menuhin School: Rising Stars
2 July, 8pm | Hall One | £20
IGF Guitar Summit
17–19 July | Various times and spaces | £14–£25, with some free events
Ten new compositions in one concert
On 31 July, ORA Singers present their 2026 Young Composers’ Showcase, featuring ten premieres from composers from across the UK.
The audience also gets to vote for the Audience Prize, making this as much a chance to hear new work as to see what might emerge from the next generation of British composers.
ORA Singers: Young Composers’ Showcase
31 July, 3pm | Hall One | £15
A 10th-anniversary performance with Kishi Bashi
American multi-instrumentalist Kishi Bashi brings his Sonderlust 10th Anniversary Tour to Hall One on 22 August, performing with a string quartet.
The album marked a change in direction for Bashi. Instead of the intricate violin loops of his earlier work, Sonderlust used vintage synthesisers, warmer textures and a more open sound.
Kishi Bashi with String Quartet: Sonderlust 10th Anniversary Tour
22 August, 8pm | Hall One | £35
Scottish folk, with a lot of other things in it
On the same evening, Hall Two hosts the Peatbog Faeries, whose music brings together Scottish folk with jazz, funk and world music.
Their line-up includes fiddles, bagpipes, whistles, drums, guitars, saxophone, keyboards and vocals. It is a long way from a conventional folk concert and one of the clearest examples of how broadly Kings Place is programming this summer.
Peatbog Faeries
22 August, 7.30pm | Hall Two | £26
Jazz outside
The summer programme finishes with one of its more informal events. On 20 August, the Kings Place Jazz Orchestra plays Swing Into Summer at Coal Drops Yard.
The free performance draws on the Great American Songbook and the London jazz scene, with music associated with Marty Paich, the Dektette and Mel Tormé.
Kings Place Jazz Orchestra: Swing Into Summer
20 August, 6.30pm | Coal Drops Yard | Free
With classical music, new composition, jazz, Brazilian music, flamenco, folk and contemporary work all appearing across July and August, Kings Place’s summer programme is less about one particular sound than the chance to move between them.
Kings Place
90 York Way, King’s Cross, London N1 9AG
Information and tickets: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/
Elena Leo is the Culture & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
