​​

9am – 10am | Event | Yoga with Amparo Rodrigues

(bring own mat)

Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

​

10.30am – 12pm | Event | Strictly Seniors Social Dance with Live Music

Trumpeter Stan Lawrence and Friends

Venue: Fitzrovia Centre, 2 Foley Street

​

1pm – 2pm | Concert | Outdoor Concert with Festival Musicians

Trumpeter Stan Lawrence and Friends
Venue: Fitzroy Square

​

7pm – 8pm | Concert | Basset Brigade! Katherine Spencer and Friends

An evening exploring the unique and wonderful musical sound-world of the basset horn, a close relative of the clarinet

Basset horns Katherine Spencer, Sarah Thurlow and Fiona Mitchell with bassoon Chris Rawley
Venue: Fitzrovia Chapel, Pearson Square

​​

9am – 10am | Event | Yoga with Amparo Rodrigues

(bring own mat)

Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

​

6pm – 7pm | Talk & Reading | Jennifer Kavanagh reads from Thread of Life: My Russian Legacy​

Long-standing Fitzrovia resident Jennifer Kavanagh reads from and talks about her memoir Thread of Life: My Russian Legacy, which follows three generations of Jewish women through the twentieth century. It moves from her grandmother, a concert pianist in St Petersburg who was murdered in the Holocaust in Riga, to her mother, born in 1915, who lived all over the world before dying in London at the age of 102. 
Jennifer will sign copies after the reading.

Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

7.30pm – 9pm | Concert | Eusebius String Quartet & Daniel Bates

Fresh from the Lewes Chamber Music Festival, the world-renowned Eusebius String Quartet hot-foot it to the Fitzrovia Chapel for an evening of Britten and Schubert. Joined by Fitzrovian oboist Daniel Bates, they pair two works from Britten’s early years, the playful Three Divertimenti and the Phantasy Quartet for oboe and strings, with Mozart's String Quartet No. 19 in C major, K. 465, the beloved ‘Dissonance’ Quartet

Venue: Fitzrovia Chapel, Pearson Square

​

9am – 10am | Event | Yoga with Amparo Rodrigues

(bring own mat)

Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

 

12.30pm | Concert | A Lunchtime Concert for Fitzrovia’s Elders

A lunchtime concert and shared meal for Fitzrovia’s older residents, at the heart of the neighbourhood they call home.
Clarinets Raj Bhaumik and Serhii Udod with bassoon Fergus Butt

Venue: All Souls, All Souls’ Clubhouse

1.15pm – 2pm | Concert | Outdoor Concert with Festival Musicians

Clarinets Raj Bhaumik and Serhii Udod with bassoon Fergus Butt

​Venue: Fitzroy Square Gardens
 

8pm – 9pm | Concert | An Ecology of Mercy

Megan Buchanan and Daniel Bates present a new work of poetry, movement and music. Drawing on Fitzrovia’s rich history, including archival interviews with former Middlesex Hospital staff and patients, and responding to a world that asks for compassion, the piece unfolds as a slow and healing meditation, a space to breathe and reflect. Fitting for a neighbourhood with such a long history of care, it is a gentle way to mark ten years of the Fitzrovia Arts Festival.
Violin Ruth Funnel, viola Kay Stephen and cello Joely Koos

Venue: Fitzrovia Chapel, Pearson Square

9am – 10am | Event | Yoga with Amparo Rodrigues

(bring own mat)

Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

 

1pm | Workshop | Poetry Workshop

​Come and write alongside Megan Buchanan, our poet in residence this year, in a friendly creative writing workshop open to everyone. No experience needed, just bring a notebook or laptop. All are welcome!

Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

 

​2pm | Concert | Jazz Performance with Pete Whyatt and Friends

Local jazz legend and pillar of community engagement Pete Whyatt brings his regular residency to The King’s Canary, the long-standing Fitzrovia hairdresser, joined by friends for an afternoon of live music.

Venue: The King’s Canary Hairdressers, 59 Riding House Street

​

3.45pm – 4.30pm | Concert | Concert for Kids and Families

Come and make some noise in the garden of the Fitzrovia Centre! Raj Bhaumik leads 45 minutes of music, singing, wriggling and giggling, a magical open-air mini concert for children and their grown-ups. Expect big sounds, silly fun and plenty of joining in.​

Venue: Fitzrovia Centre, 2 Foley Street

6.30pm | Reading | Poetry Reading
We welcome Megan Buchanan, our poet in residence this year, all the way from Vermont, USA. She reads new and published work that reckons with love, land, grief and belonging.
Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

​

8pm – 9pm | Concert | Se Ven Colores en la Luz Blanca (“Colours are seen in white light”)

Composed and performed by Pip Eastop, this solo trumpet work travels through seven short movements, one for each colour of the rainbow. Along the way you will hear shimmering colour turned into sound, the haunting call of whale song, and a handful of surprises that make it quietly magical.

Venue: Fitzrovia Chapel, Pearson Square
 

9am – 10am | Event | Yoga with Amparo Rodrigues

(bring own mat)

Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St​

​

6pm | Concert | Eric Coates: The Man from the Sleepy Lagoon by Sue Blundell
Commissioned for the very first Fitzrovia Arts Festival and now an audience favourite, this music and drama piece by local writer Sue Blundell celebrates the composer Eric Coates, who lived in the area himself.
Coates wrote some of the best-loved English light music of the twentieth century, and his tune By the Sleepy Lagoon has been the theme to Desert Island Discs for generations. The piece tells the surprising true story behind the music, which turns out to be nothing like the tropical paradise its title might suggest. You will have to come along to discover the rest.
The part of Coates is taken by renowned local actor David Acton, whose long career at the Royal Shakespeare Company has seen him crowned, betrayed and occasionally bumped off across the works of Shakespeare. Having terrified West End audiences in The Woman in Black, he steps into the altogether sunnier shoes of a great melodist, joined by an orchestra of festival musicians.
Venue: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway St

11am – 12.30pm | Walk | Fitzrovia Walking Tour with Matthew Sturgis | Dante in Fitzrovia

Acclaimed biographer and proud Fitzrovian Matthew Sturgis leads a stroll through the neighbourhood discovering the many and unexpected connections between the area and the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Starting point: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 2a Conway Street
 

12pm – 5pm | Event | National Open Garden Scheme: Warren Mews
1pm – 3pm | Live Performance | Sachin Zodgekar Jazz Quartet

The Sachin Zodgekar Jazz Quartet will perform a selection of jazz, bossa nova, and soul music.

​3pm– 5pm | Street Party with International Dancing Divas - Claudia & Cathy

and Andy Kellett

An open garden afternoon with refreshments and music; entry by donation in support of the National Garden Scheme.​

Venue: Warren Mews