7 musicians who started their career at the Southbank Centre

Many musicians who have gone on to great things started out here, playing small, often free, gigs in our iconic venues.

Our twice-monthly free gig series futuretense, which returned in 2024, is a hot spot for new and emerging artists to showcase their work. The series is our way of supporting these acts at the early stages of their careers; offering advice and mentoring and a platform to perform in front of agents, promoters and record labels.

Over the years, we’ve played host to an incredible line-up of contemporary musicians before they became ‘big’. So many that we couldn’t possibly list them all, so here is just a flavour; a magnificent seven.

After freshly signing to Bjork’s label One Little Indian Records, classically trained pianist and violinist Poppy Ackroyd first joined us for our regular free Friday Lunch gig series as part of London Literature Festival in 2017. Then, a year later, she was back to perform a sold-out show in Purcell Room. Unable to stay away, she was back again in 2019 performing solo acoustic versions of tracks from her album Sketches, aspart of Ólafur Arnalds’ building takeover event, OPIA.

‘I had full support from the venue and technical teams. This support makes all the difference, allowing you to just focus on the music and performance. I can’t wait to go back and perform there again.’

Poppy Ackroyd on performing here

Back in 2015, a year before she won the 2016 MOBO Award for Best Female Act, you could’ve seen singer and producer Lady Leshurr perform here at the Southbank Centre for free, as she brought her melodic singing and fierce lyrics to Friday Tonic (the precursor to futuretense) as part of that year’s WOW Festival. The newly crowned queen of British rap returned in 2016 stepping onto our stage to join a stellar cast of voices for the EFG London Jazz Festival’s ninth opening-night gala in Royal Festival Hall. And in 2025 she’s back with us once again, this time as part of our Multitudes festival.

Long before his Mercury Prize for At Least for Now, poet, composer and musician Benjamin Clementine first performed in the Purcell Room back in 2013. Described by the Evening Standard reviewer David Smyth as ‘incredible’, Clementine came back to Southbank Centre in 2015 to perform on a bigger stage in Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of David Byrne’s Meltdown.

In early 2019 Armenian singer-songwriter Azniv Korkejian who goes by the stage name Bedouine brought her magnetic voice and intimate SoCal canyon folk sound to Purcell Room. ‘There is power and poise in the control she has over her singing and it’s utterly hypnotic; laid-back but never languid.’ reviewed by Paul F Cook for Joyzine. After selling out the Purcell Room gig weeks in advance, Bedouine came back to take centre stage – supported by her Spacebomb band – in Queen Elizabeth Hall just 10 months later.

‘It’s such a beautiful room and one truly meant for listening comfortably and soaking up the performance like a sponge. I love to see people in the crowd at ease.’

Bedouine ahead of her Queen Elizabeth Hall gig

The electro-pop artist Pi Ja Ma brought her flurry of 60s-inspired indie and alt-rock to audiences at her Friday Tonic appearance in early 2019. It went down so well that we invited her and collaborator Axel Concato back to perform in the Purcell Room later that year. She spoke to us about her enthusiasm ahead of the gig: ‘We are very excited to present new stuff to people who already saw us and to new people. I saw that the room where we’ll be playing is big and impressive and I can’t wait to sing on a brand new stage!’ Although, still a relative newcomer to the UK music scene, Pi Ja Ma is better known in France, where she appeared on a French TV talent show La Nouvelle Star at the very young age of 16. She’s definitely one to watch!

Two years before his 2013 Mercury Prize win for second album Overgrown, musician and performer James Blake made an appearance in Purcell Room as part of our tenth Ether Festival. The festival brought together an eclectic line-up of some of the most forward thinking artists around including rising star Blake. Over the years, Ether showcased a blend of art, technology and music that surprised and delighted Southbank Centre audiences.

You could say poet and rapper, Kae Tempest, is a bit of a regular at Southbank Centre. They’ve been here for a night of verse inspired by hip-hop in 2011, performed spoken word at London Literature Festival in 2012, shared her mythically-inspired poems in 2014, and made a guest appearance with Speakers Corner Quartet at Meltdown 2024. But we believe Tempest first performed here during a much-earlier Meltdown, delivering a short set at Bandstand Busking during Richard Thompson’s 2010 Meltdown – with the likes of John Smith, Johnny Flynn and Slow Club. Sadly the very nostalgic video that existed of this performance has disappeared from the net, but we live in hope that one day it shall return.