Press Release: London Symphony Orchestra starts work on transformation of LSO St Luke's

The London Symphony Orchestra will start work this autumn on plans for the transformation of LSO St Luke’s, home of LSO Discovery the orchestra’s internationally acclaimed education, community and recording programmes, due to reopen in Autumn 2025.

Plans include a comprehensive upgrade to all the key education spaces, state of the art recording facilities for sound and vision, acoustic improvements to Jerwood Hall, the main concert and recording space, and the opening of new spaces for artists and composers’ creative development.

LSO St Luke’s, housed in a Grade 1 listed Hawksmoor Church on the borders of the City of London, Islington, and Shoreditch the gateway to London’s East End, first opened as the Orchestra’s home for music in 2003. A pioneer in the development of access to music at all levels, LSO St Luke’s is unique in the world in the sweep of its programming from children’s workshops to full scale orchestral concerts and technically advanced facilities for recording.

The new installation will ensure a continuance of the London Symphony Orchestra’s standing as one of the capital’s most important creative institutions.

Among the highlights of LSO St Luke’s achievements are:

• The launch of LSO East London Academy in 2020, a first for the Orchestra in developing outstanding musical talent from amongst the young community of East London, to build a pathway into advanced music training and professional musicianship.
• The home of LSO’s community and education programmes from workshops with toddlers, Under 5s, disabled and neurodiverse young people and adults, school-age instrumentalists and singers to creative music making with the elderly and isolated.

Over the last 20 years LSO St Luke’s has been a popular venue for live recordings and intimate concerts, with notable recordings including Marianne Faithfull’s BBC Four Sessions (2009), and Annie Lennox.

The London Symphony Orchestra is the most recorded orchestra in the world, contributing to television, films, and gaming, recent recordings both at LSO St Luke’s include:

• Eva Cassidy with the LSO (2021)
• Chopin’s 2nd Piano Concerto with Seong-Jin Cho (2021)
• Life on our Planet themes for Netflix (2022)
• Elgar and Walton cello concertos conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano (2023)
• Genshin Impact RPG video game soundtrack (2022)
• Starfield video game soundtrack (2023)

Dame Kathryn McDowell, Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra, said today: ‘We are deeply grateful for the support we have received from Arts Council England, the City of London and we thank philanthropists Alex and Elena Gerko for their generous lead gift and all the others who have supported the realisation of our ambition to transform LSO St Luke’s for a new generation.’

The London Symphony Orchestra opens the 2024/25 season at the Barbican Centre this month under its new Chief Conductor, Sir Antonio Pappano, with major international touring following in Asia and the United States. He first collaborated with the Orchestra in 1996 at Abbey Road Studios for a recording of Puccini’s opera La rondine, and have worked together regularly ever since.

‘I’ll never forget the first down beat, when the orchestra just exploded with activity and panache and derring-do,’ he recalls. ‘It felt like I’d gotten into a Ferrari and pushed the gas pedal down!’

Download photos C Doug Peters