5 things to know about The Multi-Story Orchestra

But that – specifically just off Rye Lane in the heart of Peckham – is exactly where you’ll find the innovative collective of The Multi-Story Orchestra.

This unique and decidedly contemporary take on the orchestra was founded in 2011 by composer Kate Whitley and conductor Christopher Stark. And in the years since they’ve gone from strength to strength, taking their performances beyond the concrete of SE15 and earning themselves a Royal Philharmonic Society Award along the way. They’ve also made increasingly frequent appearances in our auditoria too, most recently in December 2024 when they brought their Living Programme Notes to our Queen Elizabeth Hall.

But if you haven’t been lucky enough to catch them at the Southbank Centre yet, here are five things to know about The Multi-Story Orchestra.

They were born from a want to take music somewhere else

When Whitely and Stark set up the orchestra fresh out of university, it was through a want to take classical music beyond the confines of the concert hall. As Whitely explained in a 2023 interview with FLO London, ‘it was originally about finding different kinds of spaces to play music in… creating different kinds of atmospheres than formal performance spaces, and finding ways to make the music speak more. I’d been trying all sorts of different things – putting on gigs in pubs, warehouses, museums – anything really, then a friend of mine suggested car parks and it went from there’. But they didn’t exactly start small, their 2011 debut performance of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ featured more than 80 musicians.

They’ve become synonymous with car-park concerts

Although given their name that’s probably not surprising. Ahead of a performance at the Southbank Centre in 2022 Whitely explained to us that ‘car-parks are much more fun than concert halls! They give you so much flexibility in the kind of set-up and atmosphere you can create, and I think people behave differently in such an unexpected and unusual sort of space. The audience can also be a lot closer to the musicians than in a standard concert hall. It’s altogether much less formal’. As well as making the former car-park that is Peckham’s Bold Tendencies their home with performances there every summer, the orchestra have also performed at car-parks in Birmingham, Gloucester, Ipswich and Portsmouth, and in 2016 they broadcast the first ever BBC Proms performance from a car-park.

Their most notable production was rooted in tragedy

The Endz, a mix of orchestral music with rap, spoken word, and theatre was first performed by The Multi-Story Orchestra at Bold Tendencies in 2021. But i’s routes stretched back two years earlier, to a group of students at Peckham’s Harris Academy who had the idea of putting together a show in tribute to their friend Malcolm Mide-Madariola who was killed whilst trying to stand up for a friend in a knife fight. From there – as The Multi-Story Orchestra’s Moustapha Doumbia explained to us in 2023 – the idea spiralled, capturing the imagination of not only The Multi-Story Orchestra but the wider community in Peckham too, and the result was The Endz.

They’ve become a key part of their community

It’s not just through the resonance of productions like The Endz that The Multi-Story Orchestra have connected with their fellow Peckham residents. ‘The core of what we do is going into schools to create big ensembles of choirs and instrumentalists who then perform with our professional orchestra,’ explained Whitely to The Arts Desk in 2022. She went on to add ‘we don’t do this as an ‘education’ project – we do it because those young people bring the most amazing creative and musical energy. It means we can create incredibly moving musical experiences that also celebrate the beauty and diversity of the local community.’ Thousands of children in South London can now point to The Multi-Story Orchestra as having gifted them their first ever orchestral experience, and without having to leave their community.

They’re an orchestra, but with its own take on what an orchestra can be

The Multi-Story Orchestra’s performances go beyond the traditional canon of orchestral instruments and repertoire. ‘We write all our own music,’ explained Whitely to FLO London. ‘We often tell stories in our music – recently we’ve done stories about social media, about identity and migration, about gang culture, and about someone on a first date – it could be anything. It’s joyful, moving, groovy, sometimes silly and always beautiful.’ And beyond the strings, the wood wind, the brass and the percussion their concerts have included elements of rap, dance and performance, whilst the impact of the human voice is a familiar feature in their work, from collective community choirs to impactful acapela.

 

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