2026–27 Season Preview

St Paul’s Sinfonia was founded in 2004 to give concerts at the beautiful St Paul’s Church in Deptford. We spent our first seven seasons there, before expanding in 2011 to new venues including the stunning churches of St Alfege in Greenwich and St Margaret’s in Blackheath.

2026–27 marks our 23rd concert season, and once again we bring together much-loved orchestral works with music that deserves to be heard more often, plus an exceptional line-up of guest soloists and friends of the Sinfonia.

We open in September with Britten and Sibelius, pairing Britten’s rarely heard The Building of the House with his celebrated song cycle Les Illuminations, featuring Philippa Boyle, fresh from her Royal Opera House debut in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Festen. Sibelius’ Andante Festivo and Second Symphony complete the programme.

The Sibelius thread continues in October with the rarely heard Three Pieces for Orchestra, alongside Michael Finnissy’s Janne, an imagined portrait of Sibelius and his music, before Brahms’ Fourth Symphony brings the evening to a powerful close.

November gives us two very different ‘encounters’ with the piano. Irina Lyakhovskaya joins us for an evening devoted entirely to Rachmaninov, culminating in the Second Piano Concerto on 9th November, exactly 125 years to the day since its first complete performance. Forever associated for many with David Lean’s Brief Encounter, the concerto is preceded by the Vocalise and Henry Wood’s orchestration of the famous C sharp minor Prelude. Later in the month, Andrew Zolinsky, Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music and a distinguished champion of contemporary music, takes on Britten’s exhilarating Piano Concerto, framed by Haydn’s Symphony No. 27 and the remarkable Symphony in C written by the teenage Wagner.

For our Christmas concert, the Sinfonia’s much-esteemed leader James Widden directs an evening of festive Baroque music. Two of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos sit alongside Charpentier’s Noël sur les instruments, dances from Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes and, as always, Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, bringing 2026 to a suitably festive close.

The New Year begins with an evening devoted entirely to strings, ranging across more than a century of music. Dorothy Howell’s delicate Two Pieces for Muted Strings and Parry’s English Suite sit alongside Grażyna Bacewicz’s vigorous Concerto for String Orchestra, with more recent works by Stuart Hancock and Philip Cashian completing a programme that places familiar and less familiar British voices alongside one of the twentieth century’s great Polish composers.

In February, Fenella Humphreys, twice a winner at the BBC Music Magazine Awards, joins us for Gordon Crosse’s Third Violin Concerto, Horizon, framed by two rarely heard symphonies, Saint-Saëns’ Second Symphony and Louise Farrenc’s Second Symphony. March then brings pianist Agnieszka Pluta to the Sinfonia for Paderewski’s Piano Concerto, surrounded by Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture and the sweeping landscapes of Schumann’s ‘Rhenish’ Symphony.

April brings one of the season’s most unusual programmes. International mezzo-soprano Rowan Hellier joins us for Manuel de Falla’s darkly theatrical El Amor Brujo and the première of David Wallace’s Symphony No. 4, Chansonnier, which sets texts by the mystic poet Kabir. Mozart’s dramatic Idomeneo Overture and Beethoven’s irrepressible Eighth Symphony complete an evening spanning theatre, poetry and symphonic invention.

In May, we are delighted to welcome Peter Moore, the youngest-ever winner of BBC Young Musician and one of today’s foremost trombone soloists, for Gary Carpenter’s Fischietto è Morto. Around it sits a fascinating exploration of Wagner and his musical afterlife. Siegfried Idyll is heard alongside Matthew King’s Richard Wagner in Venice: A Symphony, which gives new life to late sketches Wagner left unfinished at his death. Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, which Wagner regarded as “pivotal to the Romantic world”, completes the programme.

We close the season in June with music shaped by folk song, dance and variation. Three much-loved works by Percy Grainger, including Irish Tune from County Derry, Molly on the Shore and Shepherd’s Hey, lead naturally to Michael Finnissy’s Folk Song Set with a welcome return from soprano Emma Tring. Brahms’ exuberant Academic Festival Overture opens the evening, before Elgar’s Enigma Variations brings our 23rd season to its close.

Across the year, familiar masterpieces sit beside discoveries, new music meets music of the past, and connections emerge between composers separated by centuries. We hope there will be plenty to surprise you, as well as old favourites to welcome back.

We can’t wait to share our 23rd season with you.