gigs
Christmas at Big Penny Social
Get ready for more festive cheer than you ever knew you needed, with classical Yuletide favourites from the Nutcracker Suite and more, the pop Christmas numbers we all love more than Quality Streets, and a vigorous slug of singalong carols!
Matinee and evening performance available.
'Overtures of the Undead' at Big Penny Social
Ever been at a Halloween party, decked out like a skeleton and admiring pumpkin art but thought, this could use a bit more… orchestra??
We’ve got you covered, with a programme of music most haunting, both classical and modern, in the perfect celebration of All Hallows’ Eve.
Expect menacing sounds, from Mussorgsky’s diabolical tone poem, ‘Night on the Bare Mountain’ to Saint-Saëns’ iconically creepy ‘Danse Macabre’, as well as unearthly music from more recent years.
Basement Orchestra Christmas at Big Penny Social
Get ready for more festive cheer than you ever knew you needed, with classical Yuletide favourites from the Nutcracker Suite and more, the pop Christmas numbers we all love more than Quality Streets, and a vigorous slug of singalong carols - all performed by the 50-piece Basement Orchestra and their choir of angels. This will be Basement Orchestra's first Christmas show since pre-covid and it's one you won't want to miss.
The Big Disney Sing-along
Join us for a magical experience as we some of the biggest and best Disney tunes from the past 100 years. Come with your voice warmed up - it's sing-along time!
The show will feature songs from everyone's best-loved Disney movies, including The Lion King, Jungle Book and the Little Mermaid, as well as music from Fantasia and other classical favourites.
It's just the excuse you've been looking for to dust off that pirate hat, mermaid tail or lion's mane as dressing up as your favourite Disney character is very much encouraged!
CANCELLED - Beethoven 250: Beets, Beats, Beers
Happy Geburtstag to you, Ludwig!
It's the big man Beet's 250th birthday this year and what better way for you to celebrate than by sitting back as Basement Orchestra play some of his biggest beats and relaxing over some premium German pilsner.
There will also be some top tunes from Debussy and Faure, because Beethoven wasn't a me, me, me kinda guy.
Mighty Hoopla!
We’re coming to the Mighty Hoopla - a celebration of pop culture that unites people through music, fashion and acceptance - with ‘Pop is Dead: Long Live Pop’. We will pay tribute to our loved but sadly lost pop stars with special orchestral renditions of some of the biggest pop tunes of the last 50 years.
Overtures from the Undead
We all need music. Even the dead.
The mysteriously departed Basement Orchestra return to The Clapham Grand with a requiem for their own lost souls. Join them for a night of music most haunting, both classical and modern, in the perfect celebration of All Hallows’ Eve.
Expect menacing sounds, from Mussorgsky’s diabolical tone poem, ‘Night on the Bare Mountain’ to Dvořák’s psychological thriller, ‘The Noon Witch’, as well as chilling music from recent years. These echoes of the occult will haunt your memories and leave you forever cursed. Just like the orchestra…
After the music, dance yourself to death on the light-up dancefloor of the Clapham Grand for exactly the wake that those lost players would have wanted.
NOW that's what we call Brahms!
Get down to the club on a Saturday night and listen to some of the most banging dance music from the past 150 years. Because Brahms was killing it with the beats back in 1858.
Basement Orchestra perform their ultimate compilation of dance music through time and across the world – from the rustic ‘Hungarian Dances' by Johannes Brahms, via the frenzied ‘Four Scottish Dances’ from Oscar-winning Malcolm Arnold, to the fiery Latin American ‘Danzón No. 2’ by Arturo Márquez.
Feast On This: The Third Coming!
At a time when the world is in greatest need, they will come down on the clouds of the sky….
BIGGER, BETTER AND MORE BATSHIT THAN EVER BEFORE. Featuring the beloved festive singalong, dancealong and blessalong, with more glory and rapture than ever before. Give your sense of the surreal a good spit polish, invite your office party and bring your nan along. Once the proper bit is over, we’ll turn up the bass and have a top notch Chrimbo disco-party. You thought you were feeling festive? You are now.
Porgy and Bess
Porgy and Bess contains some of the most iconic music of the twentieth century, but there is much more to this work than easy livin’ and cotton growing high. The composer George Gershwin sought to do justice to African American music in this maverick creation, but over the years, controversy and accusations of racial stereotyping have dogged his ‘folk opera’. Our concert performance with key extracts from the narrative was part of Arcola Theatre's acclaimed alternative opera festive, Grimeborn. Vocal performances by Talia Cohen and Masimba Ushe.
An Evening with Basement Orchestra
From music hall to dance hall in one glorious evening! The night started with some lush twentieth-century music featuring Sibelius, Hendrik Andriessen and Richard Rodney Bennett; before easing itself into the sublime with some classic Gershwin ballads. After the last note is played, we got our dancing shoes on for a truly legendary Saturday night party at The Grand…
Feast on This 2
2016 was a crazy year. We gave it a right old send-off, with singing, dancing and mince pie eating, with Shesus and the Sistas bringing that multigendered edge you never knew Christmas needed.
Secret Garden Party: Main stage
This time we headed to the Main Stage with a set inspired by the Voyager Golden Record. This was Basement Orchestra's musical mesage into space - with thanks to Mozart, Beethoven and David Bowie.
See the performance on our YouTube channel.
Classical Death Match
Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the two titans of musical history returned in the finest of fine drag-king finery to face each other and prove their supremacy once and for all. We were busting out each contender’s greatest hits – no filler tunes – for the fight of the millennium.
Feast On This!
In the most divine collaboration, we joined forces with the Spiritual Playground to bring you an extravaganza of yuletide fun and frolics to knock you for six geese a-laying. There was music. There was singing. There were games. There was glitter, sleigh bells, dancing and angels, all held together by Shesus herself. Stuff your stocking, baste your turkey and put a Christmas tree up your chimney. It’s Christmas, but not as we know it...
Story Time with Basement Orchestra
An afternoon of music interwoven with stories, it began with Prokofiev's classic for children, 'Peter and the Wolf'. We followed it up with 'Misch-Masch', a new commission by Jasmin Kent Rodgman, inspired by Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky... and by having fun.
Part of The Arcola Theatre's alternative opera, Grimeborn. Catch the video.
Secret Garden Party 2015
Another year, another summer in the Secret Garden. This year it rained, but that didn't stop us making beautiful noises.
Wood, Tin, Brass and String
We played to a sold-out crowd at the Tin Tabernacle - built by Scottish railway workers, bisieged with bombs, home to the actual altar from the film 'Beckett' and now basecamp of the local Sea Cadets and their formidable collection of rope. It was a chilly evening to put your hands around something or someone warm, settle down in between the oars and go on a voyage with us.
So Last Century!
All the best things of the 20th Century: French impressionism, rendering life's smallest tragedies through music; big bands droppin killer swingtime beats to dancefloors packed with lovers and criminals; and the foot-tapping, heart-breaking, groove-making sensations of the squelchiest of funk. This all brought to you by Basement Orchestra, Duke Street Big Band and Black Forest Ghetto.