The City of London is hosting an amazing music festival this week
The Summer Music in City Churches festival is taking place this week across the City of London.
There are events taking place every day in some of the Square Mile’s most beautiful churches — a brilliant chance to take a break from the stresses of work life and take a pew in one of these historical landmarks. Events include live music at lunchtimes and in the evenings.
There’s a classical guitar concert in St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate on 24 June at 1pm, a piano concert at St Giles Cripplegate at 7.30pm on 25 June and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Bach and Rachmaninoff on 26 June at St Giles Cripplegate. To find something to go to this week, visit the website.
Below the festival’s director and general manager of the City of London choir Jenny Robinson tells us why the Square Mile is the most underrated part of the capital for culture.
City of London churches are hosting live music in beautiful churches all week
What should everyone know about City of London culture?
There is masses going on all the time. The Barbican is well known as an impressive hub of theatre, cinema and music of all kinds, but there’s live music to be heard every single day, all over the Square Mile, in the City churches – beautifully sung services, but also concerts at lunchtimes and in the evenings, and all on the doorsteps of offices and institutions. There’s plenty to take part in, too. The City of London Choir (which is singing at the opening and closing of this year’s Summer Music in City Churches) is just one of the many choirs and orchestras that rehearse weekly in the Square Mile.
What’s the most underrated cultural landmark?
The St Bride Foundation, just off Fleet Street (behind St Bride’s church). It’s a Grade II listed Victorian building, originally set up to serve the print and publishing trade. Now it also houses the Bridewell Theatre which always has something worth seeking out, and also the Print Library. They have a priceless collection of publications, printing presses and fascinating artefacts used in the newspaper business that was the beating heart of Fleet Street for so many years. If you are interested in the history of print, journalism or typography, go and hear a talk by the guys who used to work with hot metal in pre-digital days – they are spell-binding!
Where do you go in the city to relax?
Choral Evensong is one of this country’s genuine treasures. “Relax” isn’t quite the right word for it, but it is a very special experience to listen to evensong in one of the City churches. There are superb choirs to be heard every day – in the Cathedral of course, but also churches like Temple, Holy Sepulchre, St Bartholomew the Great, and St Bride’s.
Where do you go to celebrate?
The City of London Gin Distillery!
Tell us more about your Summer Music in City Churches festivals
Ian Maclay and I started SMICC in 2018 because we felt that there was a big gap after the demise of the great City of London Festival a couple of years earlier. It had also become clear that there was a great passion for making and enjoying good music in churches outside the liturgy, and that this was the space in which to build a new festival – a much-needed antidote to the stress and relentlessness of City life.
We do our best to programme music that suits the church in which it’s performed, to create a multi-dimensional experience in which audiences can appreciate the beauty and superb acoustic of a remarkable historic building, while listening to life-enhancing music. The feedback we’ve had from hundreds of people over the years suggests that the series provides something special: a chance to hear world-class musicians performing on an intimate scale, but also an oasis of sorts.
We were among the first concert promoters to bring back live music after lockdown; the welcome from our audiences was palpable and very moving.
Why should more people visit the Square Mile’s churches if they haven’t thought to before?
Because, amidst skyscrapers, Prets on every corner, noisy traffic and thousands of busy people glued to their phones, are the fifty-something ancient churches. Some survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 (like medieval St Giles Cripplegate); others were burnt down and rebuilt. Each one is unique, built to ingenious design by Wren, Hawksmoor and friends, containing extraordinary wood carvings by men like Grinling Gibbons, with ancient links to livery companies and people who forged their livings in the City long ago.
They have survived other fires too, the Blitz and terrorist bombs, and bear witness to centuries of human beings living, working and dying in the oldest, busiest part of London. The inspiration that went into their design (look at the ceiling of St Stephen Walbrook, the spire of St Bride’s, the round church of the Temple) reveals that our forebears in the City understood the importance of space in which to worship, reflect and nourish their spirits close to their places of work, in which they could make a connection with people that had gone before and also the heavens above. A lovely concert to break up your working day is the perfect introduction!
Do you think the City is misunderstood as a cultural quarter?
Yes. Its reputation is for global business, of course, but trade has coexisted here with art for centuries. You have only to spot memorials in the churches to see that – Shakespeare, Dowland, Dickens, Keats, Milton, Edward Alleyn, TS Eliot, John Betjeman…
More festivals and culture in the Square Mile
The City of London’s churches have been getting increasingly involved in cultural initiatives. In 2023 St Paul’s Cathedral collaborated with London Design Week. A light rod was installed in the centre of the church which lit up to the sound of the choir singing. It was viewed as a turning point for the city’s churches and the way they can incorporate modern initiatives to welcome new visitors. The City Lights festival is another example of cultural events in the City’s churches.
City AM is celebrating the Square Mile with our Toast the City awards this October
This October City AM is throwing our Toast the City awards to celebrate the very best of the Square Mile. Go to the website to vote for your favourite part of the City, whether it’s a coffee shop, cocktail bar, church or public space. Anyone can vote and to submit your favourite spot is free and easy to do.
We’re currently gathering submissions and a shortlist will be drawn up later in the summer ahead of the awards ceremony which will take place in a Square Mile institution this October.
Read more: City Lights: Interactive light and sound installations light up Square Mile
Read more: Square Mile city break: How to do London’s oldest district in style