An evening of connection, reflection, & celebration: Renell Shaw’s The Windrush Suite at Kings Place

As part of Kings Place’s Memory Unwrapped season composer, songwriter and producer Renell Shaw has a year-long artist residency. Shaw’s work bridges theatre, contemporary composition and artist led music, and his credits include music for The Crucible and Othello for Shakespeare’s Globe, Is God Is for the Royal Court Theatre, , as well as winning an Ivor Novello Award for Jazz Composition for Small Ensemble.

He is currently developing a new opera with Music Theatre Wales based on Yasuke, a samurai of African origin who served Oda Nobunaga between in the 16th century. Set to premiere in 2027, the work extends his practice further into long form music drama.  

On 25 June, Shaw will be presenting two works at Kings Place as part of Memory Unwrapped. The Windrush Suite and Echo in the Bones both feature on Shaw’s albums, and this event will be the first ever performance with a full live ensemble.

The Windrush Suite pays homage to Shaw’s grandparents’ journey from the Caribbean to Britain telling their stories of love, pain, struggle, and triumph through a fusion of jazz, spoken word and Caribbean traditions. Echo in the Bones explores what it means to be Black British through the eyes of the Windrush generation’s children – weaving music, history, and storytelling into a moving portrait of resistance, legacy, and belonging.

The concert features and ensemble of 12 musicians led by Shaw, mixing classical, jazz and contemporary including cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, multi-instrumentalist Orphy Robinson and legendary saxophonist Jean Toussaint.

As a central pillar of his 2026 residency at Kings Place, Renell Shaw leads a mentoring programme, The Artist’s Room. This is a bespoke masterclass series designed to bridge the gap between creative intuition and professional longevity. By mentoring two distinct cohorts, Young Artists (16–18) and an Open Room (19+), Shaw fosters a collaborative environment where aspiring musicians and creators can refine their musicality while gaining essential industry insights directly from a master storyteller.

The concluding part of Shaw’s planned trilogy is planned for 9 October when a new commission, Remember Us Tomorrow is premiered during Black History Month. Shaw’s most personal work to date, it asks what it means to be of Afro-Caribbean heritage after three generations in Britain, raising a fourth generation in a world that is both hyper-connected and deeply divided. What stories must we protect? And how do we ensure we are remembered as tomorrow takes shape.

Full details from Kings Place’s website.