The Southbank Centre has announced a raft of new programming highlights for the year ahead, reflecting the vision of Artistic Director Mark Ball and the venue’s role as leading creator of culture within the international artistic landscape.
Announcing the season highlights Mark Ball, Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre said:
We are a place where culture happens; a creative engine room that helps forge the art of the future. Born out of the Festival of Britain we offer a space where everyone, regardless of income or background, can fully participate in arts and culture and fulfill their creative potential. And we are a home for artists at every stage of their career to be their most adventurous and create extraordinary work. The highlights we are announcing today are a testament to the Southbank Centre’s core purpose: to enable artists to create new works for audiences that are ambitious, forward looking and expressive; and to be an open, democratic space where culture grows people and its benefits are widely shared.
Highlights include:
A landmark exhibition by Gilbert & George at the Hayward Gallery, 21ST CENTURY PICTURES offers audiences the opportunity to discover the artists’ pictures from the past 25 years, some of which have never been seen in the UK. With vibrant, large-scale images that explore the human experience, the exhibition embodies Gilbert & George’s motto, ‘Art for All’ (opening October 2025).
Multitudes: (23rd April – 3rd May 2025) an electrifying new arts festival powered by orchestral music created to connect with the listeners of today. Conceived and hosted at the Southbank Centre, in partnership with the Southbank Centre’s Resident Orchestras, Multitudes showcases spectacular experiences where world-class orchestras join forces with some of the most ambitious and exciting artists, performers and creatives practising today. The multi-artform festival features national visiting orchestras and national and international artists from across art, sound, performance, dance, and spoken word. Multitudes is supported, using public funding, by Arts Council England and the National Lottery.
A new three-year creative programming partnership between the Southbank Centre and Montreux Jazz Festival exploring the theme ‘What Is Jazz Today?’. Beginning in spring 2025, the first collaboration explores the music of the legendary Nina Simone who gave memorable performances both at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976 and later at Southbank Centre as part of Nick Cave’s Meltdown in 1999. Alongside the creative programming the partnership also includes a new artist exchange programme.
Dance Your Way Home: a new summer series for 2025 that celebrates all the ways that dance brings us together. Audiences are invited to shimmy on down for a summer of stories, music and dancing together. Curated in collaboration with Emma Warren, and the people and stories who are part of her book of the same name.
A new Southbank Centre Associate Artist programme creates a three-year artistic partnership supporting the country’s boldest and most exciting artists to create ambitious new work. The Associate Artists for 2024 presenting their works in 2027 are musician and performing artist Love Ssega, opera and music theatre composer Conor Mitchell and choreographer Ivan Blackstock. In 2025, the artists whose work will be presented in 2028 are choreographer Julia Cheng, saxophonist and composer Cassie Kinoshi and author and poet Max Porter.
The London premiere of All Of This Unreal Time, (6th Dec 2024) the standout film from Manchester International Festival starring Cillian Murphy, written by Max Porter, directed by Aoife McArdle and produced by Mary Hickson. This unique London screening features the world premiere of newly composed live music created in response to the film played live by Aaron & Bryce Dessner and Jon Hopkins as well as a Q&A with members of the creative team.
A new collaboration between Rambert and the ground-beaking French dance collective (La)Horde: the gritty, sensual and fiercely real world premiere of Bring Your Own (7th – 10th May), including a brand-new piece commissioned exclusively for Rambert.
Launching in summer 2025 on Roblox – one of the most popular online games in the world with over 70 million daily players – a new Roblox experience from Southbank Centre will invite young gamers (8 to 11) to apply their creativity to making and performing music.
Expanding its already rich programme of free events, Southbank Centre’s new series Open Doors is a free and year-round offer that’s open to all and bursting with creativity. Taking place in the iconic Clore Ballroom, this series of free, public events offers creative activities, workshops, social gatherings and family entertainment. It has been created to help support people from all backgrounds, those at risk of loneliness and isolation, and the local communities of Lambeth and Southwark.
Creating new pathways into careers in Technical Production, attracting new talent and improving the diversity of the workforce, the Southbank Centre’s Technical Academy enters its second year and will take place in January 2025. An intensive three-week training programme for 25 participants aged 18+ with little or no experience working in Technical Production for live events and theatre, the Technical Academy introduces participants to backstage careers, providing entry-level training and ways to find work in the industry. Southbank Centre delivers Technical Academy in partnership with The Albany, Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT), ATG, Factory International, Livewire Productions, National Theatre, Omnii Collective, Roundhouse, Royal Albert Hall, RNSS and The Production House.
Illustrating ongoing innovation behind the scenes of the Southbank Centre, a new bespoke experimental sound system Concrete Voids turns the Queen Elizabeth Hall itself into a living, breathing, epic three-dimensional instrument. Concrete Voids is made up of over 80 speakers concealed within the chambers, tunnels and vents surrounding the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium and provides artists with enormous creative opportunities to design rich and complex sound-worlds that will immerse and thrill audiences. After a year of testing, Concrete Voids will debut with an artist commissioning programme in spring 2025.
Elaine Bedell, CEO of the Southbank Centre said:
What drives us here at the Southbank Centre is to make sure that every day we’re creating the conditions where new ideas are formed and individual potential is unlocked, where culture makers come to congregate, collaborate and create their best work. Our role is to deliver the broadest and most accessible programme in the UK, which is evident in the season highlights we’re announcing today. With ambitious moments ranging from the longest-running artist-curated music festival in the world, Meltdown, to a major exposition from Gilbert and George at the Hayward Gallery next year, this season demonstrates that a powerful creative voice is being amplified from within our buildings.
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