Wigmore Corridor has thrown its support behind making music accessible to everyone by today unveiling a new £1 ticket scheme for eligible audience members to its family concerts (for children aged 1-years-old and upwards). There will also be a new series of ‘low stimulus’ concerts for neurodivergent audiences and those who prefer a quieter environment. The announcement came as portion of the famed London chamber venue’s unveiling of its two thousand twenty-three/twenty-four season, which will feature more than five hundred concerts – involving two thousand five hundred artists – between Sept and July, including twenty-eight world and UK premieres.

Composer focs will examine the music of Australian composer Brett Dean and British composers Laurence Osborn and Joseph Phibbs, Solomon’s Knot becomes the venue’s Baroque Ensemble in Residence, and soprano and composer Héloïse Werner becomes an Associate Artist. ‘As we celebrate the new season, recent news has cast a long shadow over the future and well-being of classical music in the UK, said John Gilhooly, Wigmore Hall’s Artistic and Executive Director. ‘While Wigmore Hall's trust in the inherent cost of music is unwavering and we continue to do what we do best – bringing the best of classical music performed by the finest musicians to the widest possible audience – we'll be re-doubling our effort to introduce classical music to youthful people the earliest possible age. We hope our new £1 ticket scheme for struggling families will be a signal to parents and teachers that it's never too early to start and that children's musical education needn't be a victim of the cost of living crisis,’ he added.

Audiences exterior the London auditorium will, as usual, be able to share in the performances with lunchtime concerts broadcast on BBC Radio three every Monday at 1pm, while those and many evening concerts are also streamed live and available on Wigmore Hall’s website for up to ninety days, free of charge. New international partnerships comprise a ‘Wigmore Corridor Festival’ which will open Ireland’s new concert hall, the Whyte Recital Corridor at the Royal Irish School of Music in Dublin, as well as a French Song Exchange in collaboration with Paris’s Salle Cortot.