Southbank Centre's INSIDE OUT Announces New Events

The Southbank Centre today announces new events for Inside Out, an online season of music, literature and comedy taking place until 30 December.

On 17 September, Inside Out debuted with a UK exclusive featuring writer and activist Angela Davis, which was watched by thousands of online viewers across the country- far more than the capacity of the Royal Festival Hall itself. Tomorrow night (30 Sept), the classical music series will launch with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, live-streamed exclusively for the Southbank Centre on Marquee TV. With over 40 events across three months, audiences will continue to be able to take advantage of a truly diverse range of programming coming from the Royal Festival Hall and beyond, with new events added including:

Comedy

Refugee and migrant comedy collective No Direction Home (22 Nov), return with a new live online show with a guest headliner to be announced.

The stand-up comedy group mentored by award-winning comedian Tom Parry, return following their hugely popular summer Zoom gig for Refugee Week headlined by Nish Kumar, and hosted in partnership with the Southbank Centre.

Created by Counterpoints Arts and Camden People's Theatre, No Direction Home is an ongoing project of workshops, mentoring and performance for new comics. Since the group's creation in 2018, they have brought hilarious and uplifting comedy to gigs around the country with guest headliners including Romesh Ranganathan, Nish Kumar, Sindhu Vee, Joel Dommett and Suzi Ruffell. The Southbank Centre is a long term partner of Counterpoints Arts.

New Literature Event Announced

In their first public event following the announcement, this year's Booker Prize winner appears in conversation with the chair yet to be announced (21 - 27 Nov).

In a digital celebration of the coveted literary prize, the Southbank Centre will host an evening of readings and conversation, plus an audience Q&A, the winning author discusses their novel and the experience of securing the £50,000 prize. The pre-recorded event will first broadcast on 21 November, and will be available for 7 days On Demand. For the past 14 years, the Southbank Centre has hosted the shortlist readings in the Royal Festival Hall.

Music And Young Artists

Global artists join the line-up, as the Southbank Centre launches it's Autumn classical music series featuring 31 orchestral concerts. Nicola Benedetti appears with the Philharmonia Orchestra (30 Nov) and Jeneba Kanneh-Mason makes her debut solo appearance with Chineke! Orchestra (23 Nov). Sir Mark Elder replaces Karina Canellakis who has had to withdraw from her concert with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (21 Oct) due to ongoing travel restrictions.

Announced today, the Southbank Centre welcomes back Youth Companies in Residence, Tomorrow's Warriors and Kinetika Bloco, continuing its commitment to young artist development. Small groups will be able to access the site for in-person rehearsals between October and December. Chineke! Juniors and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain also return to the Royal Festival Hall, as part of BBC Radio 3's Autumn residency at Southbank Centre.

The NYO's digital summer residency culminates in a performance of Errollyn Wallen's Might River. The piece explores the history of the slave trade in Britain with spirituals and gospel music at its core. It is heard here alongside Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mason Bynes, Florence Price, Adoplhus Hailstock, Jessie Montgomery, and arrangements of 'Amazing Grace' and 'Deep River'. Chineke! Juniors perform Fela Sowande's African Suite and works by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.

Further details about contemporary music gigs will be announced soon.

Free Events

To coincide with a new exhibition Phenomenal Women: Portraits of UK Black Female Professors (10 Oct - 8 Nov 2020), a free online event Phenomenal Women: Black Female Professors (15 Oct and available throughout the exhibition on demand) brings into sharp focus the lack of Black women in academia. Dr Nicola Rollock is in conversation with Professor Funmi Olonisakin, (Vice-President and Vice-Principal International and Professor of Security, Leadership and Development at King's College London) and Professor Tracey Reynolds, (Professor of Sociology at the University of Greenwich) in an online event chaired by journalist Liv Little.

Dr Rollock, one of the UK's leading academics on racial justice in education and the workplace, discusses the exhibition and her work, the barriers faced by Black female scholars, the implications of the lack of Black women in academia; and why it matters. She is in conversation with Liv Little, the founder of gal-dem, a media company committed to spotlighting the creative talents of women and non-binary people of colour.

The exhibition, a celebration of Black British academics will be brought to the public in a unique free outdoor exhibition. Commissioned and curated by Dr Nicola Rollock, and photographed by Bill Knight, it features portraits of 45 professors across a broad range of subjects including law, medicine, creative writing and sociology. Timed to coincide with Black History Month, the exhibition is presented along the Southbank Centre's popular public riverside promenade The Queen's Walk. For more information see the press release.

BBC Radio 3 Residency

BBC Radio 3 will be in residence at the Southbank Centre this Autumn, continuing its longstanding relationship with the venue.

Broadcasting over ten live concerts from the Royal Festival Hall, BBC Radio 3 will amplify the stand-out Autumn programming for audiences nationwide, including Tasmin Little's last ever recital at a major UK venue.

Alongside the classical music programme, the Southbank Centre will also host a series of BBC Radio 3 speech and literature events, reflecting both organisations' ongoing commitment to speech programming.

The series of programmes will include an examination of the history and appeal of seances with Kate Summerscale, author of The Haunting of Alma Fielding and Simon Grant, the curator of Not Without My Ghosts, a Hayward Touring exhibition made in partnership with Drawing Room (20 Oct); the winners of the 2020 Polari Prize and Paul Burston, the founder of the LGBTQ+ literary salon, a Southbank Centre resident group (21 Oct); a discussion about the poetry and politics of Aimé Césaire with Sudhir Hazareesingh, author of Black Spartacus, poet André Naffis-Sahely and Alexandra Reza, one of the ten early career academic selected this year on the New Generation Thinkers scheme which BBC Radio 3 runs with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (22 Oct); a discussion about living in the city and the change in street culture with guests including Katie Beswick, author of Social Housing In Performance: The English Council Estate On and Off Stage, and Julia King from the London School Economics Cities programme (27 Oct); a debate about individualism, caring and community with guests including Madeleine Bunting, author of Labours of Love (28 Oct); and a look at audiences and the way people are adapting to viewing the arts in 2020 with guests including Ted Hodgkinson, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, theatre historian Kirsty Sedgman and New Generation Thinker and dance historian Lucy Weir (29 Oct).

BBC Radio 3 Music Matters, The Verb and In Tune will also present related content. The series of programmes will be available to download from BBC Arts & Ideas podcasts, with the wider music season available on BBC Sounds.

Inside Out will be presented and available to view online from 17 September - 30 December. Please see the full listings for Inside Out HERE.

Tickets for the newly announced events outlined above will be on sale to Members from 30 September and on general sale from 2 October.