Academy of St Martin in the Fields announces 2025/26 season

Against ongoing political and economic uncertainty, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields launches most ambitious season of the last decade

ASMF continues to collaborate with the world’s great soloists and directors, including Music Director Joshua Bell, Jan Lisiecki, Steven Isserlis, Arthur & Lucas Jussen, Elena Urioste and Khatia Buniatishvili alongside exciting rising stars such as Arielle Beck.
ASMF welcomes the second year of its partnership as Principal Orchestral Partner at the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields with a season of concerts including a BBC Radio 3-broadcast performance with the inaugural ASMF BBC New Generation Associate Julius Asal
The orchestra embarks on its most significant international season of the last decade, including four tours to the US, ASMF’s return after 20 years to NYC’s Carnegie Hall, and four separate tours to countries across Europe.
Major European and US tours with ASMF Music Director Joshua Bell launch the celebration of his 15 years in his role as Music Director, alongside a performance at London’s Cadogan Hall on 20 January
ASMF premieres three new commissions from composers Sally Beamish, Huw Watkins and Eleanor Alberga, in addition to the UK premiere of Kevin Puts’ Earth for violin and chamber orchestra
Continuing to place the creative empowerment of its musicians at its heart, two more Marriner Projects are announced. ASMF’s Marriner Projects provide funding and administrative support for projects led by ASMF musicians in their local communities.
ASMF marks continued commitment to work with people who have experienced homelessness, extending its growing programme in London to be delivered in cities around the world
As the UK’s busiest orchestra not in receipt of regular funding from Arts Council England, ASMF continues to lobby government to reverse the recent change to orchestra tax relief (OTR), which makes international projects ineligible and will upend the economic, soft power, growth and tourism benefits OTR has enabled
The Academy of St Martin in the Fields (ASMF) today announces highlights from its 25/26 season, featuring performances with some of the world’s greatest soloists – including Joshua Bell, Jan Lisiecki, Steven Isserlis, Arthur & Lucas Jussen, Elena Urioste and Khatia Buniatishivili – alongside further growth of its social purpose programme and projects to enhance and celebrate the empowerment of its musicians.

INTERNATIONAL TOURING
As one of the UK’s most celebrated cultural exports, ASMF embarks on a season of busy international touring, with multiple tours to Europe and North America and the orchestra’s return to Carnegie Hall with Music Director Joshua Bell after two decades. ASMF’s international tours, in addition to providing life-enhancing experiences for audiences around the globe, present excellent value for money for the UK with £10 in international fees and fundraised income brought back to the country for every £1 received in international orchestra tax relief. As the only orchestra to have ever been awarded the Queen’s Award for Export Achievement, ASMF is uniquely placed to advocate for the quality of British music-making globally. Without public investment from Arts Council England, income from ASMF’s international touring sits alongside its fundraising to helps to subsidise and enable its performance and social purpose work in the UK.

LONDON SEASON
ASMF continues its relationship with the orchestra’s historic home, the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, as the Principal Orchestral Partner of the venue. More than 10 concerts at the Church include performances by rising stars Julius Asal and Arielle Beck, collaborations with acclaimed resident choir St Martin’s Voices, concerts from established soloists including Steven Isserlis and Arthur & Lucas Jussen, the world premiere of a new symphony from Eleanor Alberga, and a celebration of the 70^th birthday of beloved composer and former ASMF orchestra member Sally Beamish. On 20 January, ASMF Music Director Joshua Bell will perform Brahms’s epic Violin Concerto as part of a programme also featuring the UK premiere of Kevin Puts’ Earth and Schumann’s Symphony No.1 at Cadogan Hall.

SOCIAL PURPOSE
ASMF continues to deliver projects to empower people through music making, particularly those who are or who have experienced homelessness. Following its introduction more than two decades ago, ASMF’s work in this area has expanded significantly in recent years, now partnering with three homeless shelters and deliberately increasing the provision of this work in response to the increased need seen in London and across the UK.

In May 2025, ASMF will deliver a series of workshops in homeless centres across London, spearheaded by the established practice of ABO Award-winning practitioner and long-term ASMF collaborator Jackie Walduck. Collaborating with The Outside Project, 999 Club, 240 Project, Ollalo House, The Vineyard Community Centre, The Connection, The Upper Room and Refettorio Felix at St Cuthberts – who all serve communities in London. ASMF has also recently embarked on a pilot research project to fully understand the impact of this work has on the communities it serves.

A participant at The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields commented:
“The music group is really wonderful for everyone’s spirit. When you’re homeless you can end up so low and the music group is one of the main things that changes how I feel and gives me some motivation”.

To enhance the impact of the orchestra’s touring performances, ASMF now embeds its social purpose programme into every tour, delivering projects that include sessions and performances in homeless shelters, coaching and masterclasses for young musicians, side-by-side projects with up-and-coming musicians, and schools’ performances across the world.

MARRINER PROJECTS
ASMF’s Marriner Projects are initiatives which put funding and administrative support behind projects masterminded and delivered by the orchestra’s musicians. As a dedicated continuation of founder Sir Neville Marriner’s vision for musicians who can be entrepreneurial and autonomous, ASMF is proud to announce the launch of two new projects championing community music-making.

Flautist Sarah Newbold will present two concerts in Llangenny, Wales for flute and string quartet, and flute, viola and harp, bringing the music-making spearheaded by an ASMF musician to her village and community. In a collaboration with students at Circkhowell High School, Sarah’s project will also involve music workshops and performances within the school whilst also raising funds for the village hall through the concerts. Viola Player Robert Smissen, violinist Rebecca Scott-Smissen and cellist Juliet Welchman will create a series of string trio-based concerts in St Botolph Culpho, Suffolk. Each concert will involve multiple days of open rehearsals alongside satellite performances throughout different settings in the local community. Both initiatives will also include informal and friendly parallel performances in London, in the new community cafe Sacred Grounds located above ASMF’s Soho office on Dean Street.

In 2024/25, violinist Catherine Morgan scaled up her popular Tinklings series at The Lamb & Flag pub in Oxford into a monthly event, and viola player Fiona Bonds built on a chamber music series she has been presenting and building in Hertford, with a local community element attached to each concert.
ASMF’s Marriner Projects are supported by Cockayne – Grants for the Arts and The London
Community Foundation and Dunard Fund USA.

ASMF Chief Executive, Annie Lydford, added:
“Despite challenges on the horizon, which range from the political and economic uncertainty felt throughout the world through to the recent exclusion of international work from the UK’s orchestral tax relief, we are ambitious about our future and confident that we can continue to extend and grow the positive impact this orchestra wants to have on audiences and communities across the globe.

This season we are proud to present the most ambitious body of work in the orchestra’s recent memory, with major international tours sitting alongside a full season of concerts at our historic home, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and other venues in London and around the country. With new commissions, a new raft of Marriner projects (the projects and initiatives masterminded and run by our musicians), the continued growth of ASMF’s programme using music to empower people experiencing homelessness, and exciting partnerships with phenomenal soloists both familiar and new to the orchestra, there is much to look forward to.

Against this backdrop, ASMF continues to focus upon its financial independence and stability and has, after two years, secured over half of its five-year £5million fundraising target. This success is thanks to our passionate friends and supporters here in the UK, across Europe, and our American Friends in the US, for which we are extremely grateful. We would like to offer particular thanks ahead of this season to The Berry Charitable Foundation, supporters of the position of Music Director of ASMF and of the 2026 Carnegie Hall residency, and to Maria Cardamone who chairs the board of our American Friends of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.”

ASMF violinist, Catherine Morgan says:
“It is always a joy to welcome in another season with ASMF, particularly one that allows us to connect with audiences across the world. This season, we look to ASMF’s musical history with performances celebrating the beloved music from Amadeus, as well as celebrating former ASMF member and composer-in-residence Sally Beamish on the occasion of her 70^th birthday.

We also have the opportunity to look to the future, performing with rising star and ASMF BBC New Generation Artist Associate, Julius Asal, who opens our London season, in addition to performances of three new commissions across our programming.

I’m also looking forward to the continuation of my Marriner Project – Tinklings, an informal chamber concert series at the Lamb and Flag in Oxford. To have the support of ASMF during the creation and staging of these concerts is invaluable, and it’s exciting to see what the future has in store.”

Composer Eleanor Alberga says:
“I am tremendously excited about writing for the wonderful Academy of St Marin-in-the-Fields. With their extraordinary collective intelligence and imagination, and such a finely developed group sense of colour, pulse and sound, what more auspicious opportunity could I have to give birth to my Second Symphony? My admiration from afar for the group goes back a long way, but a more immediate affection was forged during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 when they undertook the rescue of my work Nightscape from the banishment of a box in my attic and relaunched it. I am tingling with excitement at the prospect of hearing the sound world I am starting to gather…”