Sound Unbound 2019

Head here for our headliners. Our 2000-seater concert hall is the place to hear everything from minimalist sounds reimagined to iconic music you’ll probably recognise – including Carl Orff’s explosive choral work Carmina Burana. Stephen Fry introduces the symphony that changed classical music forever, Beethoven’s Eroica. The charismatic Miloš blends classical guitar with the Beatles. And the soundtrack is the star in the Academy Award-winning love-letter to the silent film era The Artist ^(PG), screened here with a live performance of its toe-tapping score.

Saturday
12.30–1.20pm: Carmina Burana with London Symphony Chorus
4–4.40pm: Miloš + 12 ensemble – Bach to Beatles
8–10pm: The Artist, live in concert with BBC Symphony Orchestra

Sunday
12noon–1pm: Heroic Beethoven: Symphony No 3 introduced by Stephen Fry
2.30–3.10pm: Chineke! Orchestra – Elegy for Stephen Lawrence
4.45–5.25pm: Bach Recomposed with Peter Gregson
8–9.30pm: Max Cooper + Bruce Brubaker: Glassforms

Soak up the sun and relax by the fountains while you enjoy pop-up performances from the fun-loving Street Orchestra Live and two hypnotic minimalist masterpieces – Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint and Terry Riley’s In C.

Saturday
2–2.30pm: Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint with Dither + Zwerm
3.45–4.15pm: VolksMusica with Collectif9
5.30–6pm: Terry Riley: In C with Guildhall Artists

Sunday
1.45–2.15pm: Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint with Dither + Zwerm
4–4.30pm: Terry Riley: In C with Guildhall Artists
6–6.20pm: Street Orchestra Live

Wander among the greenery, koi carp and terrapins of our tropical oasis to the strains of Mozart’s heavenly Gran Partita and music inspired by birdsong. Or get caught up in the infectious dance rhythms of a Klezmer Wedding.

Saturday
2–2.40pm: Klezmer Wedding with Lakeside Clarinet Quartet
3.30–4.10pm: Three Strange Angels
5–5.40pm: Gone with the Wind
6.30–7.10pm: Three Strange Angels

Sunday
2–2.40pm: Klezmer Wedding
3.30–4.10pm: Musician Wren with Isha Chrichlow
4.10–4.20pm: ?Corporel with Tomyr Warcaba-Wood
5–5.40pm: Gone with the Wind
6.30–7.10pm: Three Strange Angels
7.10–7.20pm: ?Corporel with Vittorio Angelone

Explore the points where art, politics and contemporary culture intersect in Stalin’s Piano^(*), as music duets with and plays off speeches by famous politicians, artists and personalities, from Jackson Pollock to Donald Trump. Gain a new perspective of Baroque song, reimagined as 21st-century singer-songwriter arrangements. And budding young film composers can learn the ropes of making music for the movies with film composer Laura Rossi at Family Film Club.

Saturday
11am–12.15pm: Family Film Club: Making Movie Music with Laura Rossi
3.30–4.30pm: Stalin’s Piano with Sonia Lifschitz

Sunday
1–2pm: Stalin’s Piano with Sonia Lifschitz
2.45–3.25pm: Nora Fischer + Marnix Dorrestein: HUSH
4–5pm: Stalin’s Piano with Sonia Lifschitz

Get up close to intimate performances in this acoustically-perfect hall. Join countertenor John Holiday as he demonstrates the versatility of the human voice in songs from the Baroque to Broadway via the Blues and romantic song; guitarist Miloš in a short concert bursting with Spanish and Latino rhythms; and the vivacious saxophonist and Classic Brit Award-winner Jess Gillam. Discover the meditative and calming qualities of the music of the 18th-century master J S Bach, reinvented for marimbas. And dive into an unsettling futuristic world, where Nora Fischer sings a story of secrets and paranoia in a Big Brother-like surveillance society.

Saturday
1–1.40pm: The Secret Diary of Nora Plain with Nora Fischer + Ragazze Quartet
2.30–3.10pm: The Secret Diary of Nora Plain with Nora Fischer + Ragazze Quartet
4.15–4.55pm: John Holiday: Dream Portraits 6.30–7.10pm: John Holiday: Dream Portraits

Sunday
1–1.40pm: Bach meets Marimbas with Academy of Ancient Music, Amy Dickson, Christoph Sietzen + Bogdan Bacanu
2.30–3.10pm: Bach meets Marimbas with Academy of Ancient Music, Amy Dickson, Christoph Sietzen + Bogdan Bacanu
4.30–5.10pm: Miloŝ in concert
6.15–6.55pm: Jess Gillam in concert

Experience English Renaissance music reborn for a digital age with the electric guitar group Zwerm in one of the City’s few remaining medieval churches. And Mendelssohn’s romantic String Octet exploring the ecstasy, elation and anguish of young love is paired with an arrangement of Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Ros’s Fljótavík, both played by the dynamic young 12 ensemble.

Saturday
1.15–1.55pm: Young Love from 12 ensemble
3–3.40pm: Bach Recomposed by Peter Gregson
4.30–5.10pm: Bach Recomposed by Peter Gregson
6.45–7.25pm: Electric Renaissance from Zwerm

Sunday
1–1.40pm: Sacred Bones Sackbut Ensemble
3–3.40pm: No Time for Chamber Music from Collectif9
5–5.40pm: Electric Renaissance from Zwerm

Grab an instrument and join the Junior Guildhall Big Gig – a fun-filled musical workshop open to people of all ages and abilities, from new starters to rusty veterans. No instrument? No problem – just bring yourself and join the choir or percussion section as you work together to write a new piece of music.

To reserve your seat in the orchestra/choir please email [email protected] stating the number of places you wish to reserve and what instruments (if any) you will bring.

Step into an immersive performance experience created by composer Amir Konjani, which draws on music, video art and performance sculpture to transform space, imagine new instruments and redefine the concert experience in this 18th-century Grade-1 listed church. And cutting-edge string ensembles explore an extensive range of music from Mahler, Tavener and Prokofiev to arrangements of powerful works of modern-day songwriting, alongside music for the movie There will be blood by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.

Saturday
2–2.30pm, 3–30pm, 4–4.30pm: To be Someone Else is a Battle by Amir Konjani

Sunday
1–1.40pm: Ragazze Quartet: EtherQuartet
2.30–3.10pm: Jayson Gillham: The Joy of Piano
4–4.40pm: Jayson Gillham: The Joy of Piano
6–6.40pm: 12 ensemble: Altered States

Take your family on an interactive, musical time-travelling journey from the Victorian era into the future, among exhibits telling the ever-changing story of this great world city and its people. Introduce your young ones to the sounds of the cello and the clarinet, immerse yourself in London sounds and get hands on by contributing your unique sound to a live-mixed performance experiment.

Saturday & Sunday
11 & 11.45am, 12.30, 2.15, 2.45 & 3.30pm

Be whisked around the world in the intimate cocktail and champagne bar tucked away below Long Lane in Smithfield. Featuring a Braziliana bossa nova performance, an accordion tango concert and a mesmerising ambient and electronic improvised performance by pianist Tom Rogerson from his collaborative album 'Finding Shore' with Brian Eno.

Saturday
1.15–1.55pm: Brasiliana with Lotte Betts-Dean + Andrey Lebedev
2.15–3.40pm: Tom Rogerson: Finding Shore
4–4.40pm: History of Tango with Bartosz Glowacki

Sunday
1.15–2.15pm: Tom Rogerson: Finding Shore
2.30–3.10pm: History of Tango with Bartosz Glowacki
3.45–4.40pm: Tom Rogerson: Finding Shore
5–5.40pm: Brasiliana with Lotte Betts-Dean + Andrey Lebedev