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Well here’s an incredible climax to London’s Pride Month celebrations.
From 27 June to 4 July, you’re invited to immerse yourself in a rich tapestry of LGBTQ+ artistry, at one of the UK’s most exciting emerging music festivals. Welcome to Classical Pride 2025.
Now in its third year, Classical Pride is all about shining a spotlight on incredible queer composers and musicians — past and present — all while reimagining the future of classical music. It’s also an opportunity for community building — bringing together LGBTQ+ people and allies, seasoned concertgoers, and new audiences for a shared celebration of creativity and identity.
There are five concerts here in London (plus the festival’s US debut at the Hollywood Bowl, if you happen to find yourself in Los Angeles on 10 July). Read on to find out all about them.
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London’s leading LGBTQ+ choir returns to Classical Pride for the second year running, this time with a programme exploring “the ecstasy of mystical experience and its consummation in physical love”. Head to Wigmore Hall on 27 June to hear The Fourth Choir perform stirring works spanning nine centuries.
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Themes of resilience, joy and nostalgia loom large in an afternoon concert at Kings Place on 29 June, curated by trumpeter Aaron Azunda Akugbo. He’s joined by Manchester Camerata chamber orchestra to perform a programme that includes Joy Guidry’s They Know What They’ve Done to Us (a fusion of trumpet and electronics) and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story Suite.
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The expressive capabilities of the human voice are pushed to their limits in this unique concert, featuring Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices (which earned its composer the title of youngest-ever Pulitzer Prize recipient). Expect a kaleidoscopic array of vocal techniques, including humming, sighing, rhythmic effects, and katajjaq (Inuit throat singing). It’s performed by London Voices and conducted by Ben Parry.
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Works by LGBTQ+ composers and poets are brought together for a recital showcasing leading young classical musicians. Soprano Harriet Burns and baritone Jonathan Eyers will recite poems by the likes of Langston Hughes, Alfred Tennyson and Mary Wortley Montagu, set to music by Ricky Ian Gordon, Maud Valérie White and Jonathan Dove (to name a few). It’s at the Barbican on 4 July, and is free to attend.
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The finale of Classical Pride 2025 is set to be nothing short of spectacular, with the London Symphony Orchestra celebrating a vibrant range of LGBTQ+ voices in classical music at the Barbican, also on 4 July. Conductor (and Classical Pride founder) Oliver Zeffman will lead them through the likes of Saint-Saëns’ Bacchanale, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Suite, and the gay anthem that is Over the Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz, sung by Jamie Burton.
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