• Six generations of musical stars from around the world gather in London to mark Wigmore Hall’s 125th anniversary
• Twenty-four concerts across 14 days, with many broadcast on BBC Radio 3, reaching audiences across the UK and internationally
• Launch of a major new biography of Wigmore Hall by Julia Boyd, exploring music-making in London across two centuries against seismic historical events and social change
• Stellar line-up includes, sopranos Lise Davidsen, Asmik Grigorian, Carolyn Sampson; tenor Ian Bostridge; baritone Christian Gerhaher; pianists Thomas Adès, Yunchan Lim, Igor Levit, Alexandre Kantorow, Angela Hewitt; violinists Alina Ibragimova, Christian Tetzlaff; cellist Abel Selaocoe’s Bantu Ensemble and multi-instrumentalists Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi with Crash Ensemble; the Belcea, Modigliani and Leonkoro Quartets, Les Arts Florissants with William Christie, and Hespèrion XXI with Jordi Savall

Tickets go on general sale on Tuesday 27 January 2026.

Wigmore Hall will mark its 125th anniversary with a two-week festival from 25 May to 7 June 2026, the centrepiece of its 2025/26 anniversary season. Leading artists from across the globe join the celebrations, with many concerts broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 or recorded for future transmission, bringing the festival to audiences across the UK and internationally.

Centred on Wigmore Hall’s inaugural concert date of 31 May 1901, the Festival spans the week on either side, opening on 25 May 2026 with a reimagining of the historic event. Composer and pianist Thomas Adès, soprano Louise Alder, violinist Alina Ibragimova, and pianists Joseph Middleton and Cédric Tiberghien will revisit elements of the original programme, including Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30, Schubert Lieder, solo violin works by Bach and Beethoven, and Brahms’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini. The concert also features the world première of a new piano arrangement of Adès’s ‘Vesper (for Henry Purcell)’ from his 2023 work Forgotten Dances, performed by the composer.

The opening night marks the launch of historian Julia Boyd’s new book, There Is Sweet Music Here: The World of Wigmore Hall (Elliott & Thompson, 2026). Drawing on archival sources and first-hand accounts, Boyd charts the Hall’s extraordinary journey from Edwardian beginnings to the present day. Her narrative captures stories of survival, reinvention, artistic daring, wartime resilience and near financial collapse, vividly portraying how the 550-seat Marylebone concert hall became a musical landmark, repeatedly defying the odds to shape the musical life of London and beyond.

John Gilhooly, Director of Wigmore Hall, said:

“Julia Boyd’s book paints a vivid picture of Wigmore Hall’s evolution into the vital global centre it is today, through stories of the artists who have made this Hall their own. I am grateful to the constellation of today’s stars who will join us to celebrate this landmark anniversary and create their own history with the Hall for the future. I am also deeply grateful to our partners, supporters, audiences and friends who have made this season possible – we simply could not have reached this milestone without them.”

Across 14 days, audiences will experience an exceptional range of performances. The distinguished vocal line-up includes Lise Davidsen in an all-Schubert programme; Ian Bostridge in Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Liederkreis; Asmik Grigorian in French and Russian vocalises and Strauss’s Four Last Songs; and Christian Gerhaher with Gerold Huber in a programme of Beethoven, Berg, Brahms, Mahler and Wolf. Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton perform a programme of songs premièred in the year Wigmore Hall opened, 1901, while Elaine Mitchener and Elizabeth Kenny collaborate for the first time in a wide-ranging programme spanning Dowland to Joni Mitchell.

Superstar pianist Yunchan Lim performs Fantasies by Chopin, Schumann and Schubert; Igor Levit gives a solo recital featuring Liszt’s visionary Dante Sonata; and Lukas Sternath, a student of Levit’s, makes his evening recital debut with Liszt and Schubert. Other piano recitals come from Alexandre Kantorow and Angela Hewitt.

London Voices bring the shimmering, incantatory textures of Stockhausen’s Stimmung to a late-night performance, while Jordi Savall and Hespèrion XXI perform Monteverdi and Dowland, and Les Arts Florissants and William Christie perform Handel’s Acis and Galatea.

Cellist Abel Selaocoe’s Bantu Ensemble blends classical and African traditions, while singer, composer, ace fiddler and banjo virtuoso Rhiannon Giddens joins forces with Francesco Turrisi and Ireland’s Crash Ensemble for a genre-crossing finale to her 2025/26 Season Residency.

Mendelssohn’s youthful Octet is performed by the Modigliani and Leonkoro Quartets; Mozart’s G minor String Quintet is performed with Tabea Zimmermann and the Belcea Quartet; and Brahms and Schumann piano quintets with Igor Levit and the Leonkoro Quartet.

The Festival closes with a rare complete performance of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, performed by Christian Tetzlaff to mark his 60th birthday.

Throughout the 2024/25 Season, Wigmore Hall marks its 125th Anniversary with a series of newly commissioned Voices of Today works. On 28 February 2026, Ensemble Mosaik gives the première of a new work by British composer Lawrence Dunn and American composer Nick Bentz’s a gleaming like ivory that slowly resolves until it becomes dust will be performed by Ensemble intercontemporain on 16 May 2026. Also, on 20 June 2026, the Carducci String Quartet joins pianist Tom Poster for the world première of Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade’s new piano quintet, presented alongside Elgar’s Piano Quintet in A minor.