Gigs in London this weekend

In London, we are well past the days of jazz being stuffy dinner party music, because the capital’s jazz scene is dynamic, young, cool and underground. Split across the Truman Brewery, 93 Feet East and nearby venues, the Brick Lane Jazz Festival brings together some of the best and most exciting talent on the flourishing scene, and in the past hast hosted big talent like Nubya Garcia, Ezra Collective and Cherise. In 2026, the festival will programme genre-blending sounds covering jazz, RnB, neo-soul, hip hop, broken beat and electronic music. The first wave of acts announced for the next edition includes IAMNOBODI, Kwame Yeboah, Alexander Flood, TABLE and more. 

In April, the second iteration of arts festival Multitudes will take over the Southbank Centre, bringing together world-class orchestras and some of the most ambitious and exciting artists, performers and creatives currently working in their fields. The big show of the series is ‘Un-natural Harmony: Sounds of Lee Alexander McQueen’ (April 29–30), a concert and dance performance focussed on the music that inspired the legendary designer from Barber to Bjork. Other highlights include the Aurora Orchestra performing Stravinsky’s radical The Rite of Spring completely by heart (April 16), a blend of live orchestral music and heavy metal in ‘Forged in Sound: Heavy Metal Orchestrated’ (April 22) and a spectacular circus interpretation of Bach’s The Art of Fugue (April 24 and 25).