The Story Behind CBSO in the City – by Emma Stenning, CEO of CBSO

CBSO in the City returns this coming weekend (27-31 August), as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) goes beyond its home at Symphony Hall for five days to deliver 20 free performances in public spaces in and around the city. Tens of thousands of Birmingham residents will encounter the orchestra for performances in unexpected places – from New Street Station and the Bullring to Birmingham Botanical Gardens and the city’s Children’s Hospital. CBSO Music Director, Kazuki Yamada, will also be performing piano on a CBSO-branded tram – and members of the public will even get the chance to conduct the orchestra. All public performances are free (except for admission fees for some host venues) and residents that experience a CBSO performance will have to chance to pick up a golden ticket – which means that for just £1, they will be able to book a CBSO concert of their choice in the 2026-27 Season at Symphony Hall, which starts in September.

Ahead of CBSO in the City, Emma Stenning – CEO at the CBSO – reflects on the genesis and evolution of this milestone summer music event.

CBSO in the City Highlights

“It’s always incredibly high impact when we land the whole orchestra in a public space, and we’ll be doing that a couple of times in CBSO in the City this coming weekend. It just brings everyone to a standstill. I love it when, in a place that’s normally completely bustling with people – and they suddenly stop because, ‘Oh my goodness, there is a whole orchestra playing the Harry Potter soundtrack, or music from Pirates of the Caribbean’. We pick popular tunes because we want something familiar to everyone, that turns heads. When we play at New Street Station, when we play at The Bullring, you turn round, and suddenly there’s thousands of people watching.

“For me, those moments of pause and celebration are so important. They give us a chance to go, ‘Hang on a minute! Don’t we just love it here? Isn’t there something incredible about our city? Isn’t there something completely unifying and bonding about music?’ In many ways, CBSO in the City is one of the most important things we do during the year. The impact of having the whole orchestra out in force is always going to be incredibly special.

“Having said that, we also do things that are so charming and surprising that I can’t help but mention them. In the first year of the festival, having Kazuki playing keyboard on the tram was so weird and wonderful that it was just absolutely delightful. It was amazing to have an entire tram singing along – and that isn’t that a ride to work that people are going to remember and tell their friends and families about. That sort of thing is really special to me.

“It also says something about the CBSO that our Music Director will get on a commuter tram and play music with no barriers. We’ve all got fairly bold CBSO T-shirts, and Kazuki’s got one that just says “Music Director” on the back. He always says to me that he loves CBSO in the City because people stop him in the street, and that’s what I love too. I love running around the city, and I especially love seeing people holding flyers about our £1 ticket offer.

“Our job is to bring the joy and the magic. Yes, of course we do that in Symphony Hall with Mahler and Beethoven, but we also do it by turning up unexpectedly in a cafe with a harp and a flute, and offering something completely unexpected and magical that you’ll remember for a long, long time. For me, art is all about encounters; it’s about unexpectedly discovering something that brings a bit of beauty, reflection and energy to your day. We should all spend more time doing that.

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Jess Gillam: CBSO Collaborative Artist

“Jess Gillam is such a phenomenal artist, and it’s just incredible to watch her play. She is such an amazing ambassador for her instrument – and for orchestral music in general – so we’re very proud to have her as part of the CBSO family. This year, we wanted to centre Jess in the CBSO in the City programme, and she was really excited about the idea of bringing together what she calls her ‘rusty saxophone band’. People can just sign up and join in. Depending on what level of playing you’re at, you can get the music, attend a practice session and then rock up at Brindleyplace to come and be part of the performance. That, I think, is going to be epically fun. Whether you’re coming along with a saxophone to join in, or whether you’re getting an ice cream and sitting on a deck chair, I think it’ll just be a really good fun performance. And what a treat to have a musician of such extraordinary international calibre come and rock out with people in the city.

The £1 Ticket Initiative

“We’re really aware that, for quite a while now, classical music in particular – and orchestral music in general – has a bit of a threshold problem. One of the hardest things that we tackle is trying to convince more people that Symphony Hall is somewhere they can consider a home, where they can feel welcome, somewhere they needn’t be anxious or nervous about coming to. Of course, there are many people who enjoy developing a knowledge base about classical music, listening to the radio and going to talks, and there’s a whole world of adventure and understanding around the genre, but you don’t need any of that to listen to a tune, be moved by it and love it. One thing we’re consistently trying to do is to get rid of as many barriers as possible. Image can be a barrier. Price can be a barrier. Location can be a barrier. That’s one of the reasons why CBSO in the City is in public spaces and its free. Of course, one of the things that we hope CBSO in the City will do is make someone go, ‘I’ve just spent 20 minutes listening to an orchestra play, and it was amazing. Maybe I should think about going to a concert?’ In that moment, we want to make it as easy as possible for that person to say yes.

“Our £1 initiative lets us say, ‘You’ve had this for free. Why don’t we give you the next thing for a quid?’ We try to take away the worry of going. It’s not to say that our tickets aren’t otherwise accessible, but there’s something in just saying, ‘It’s a quid – what have you got to lose? It’s the price of a pack of polos.’

“We give out a ‘golden ticket’ flyer with a QR code; it’s very easy. What we’ve found is there were about 2,000 people that bought £1 tickets last year, and 75% of them were coming for the first time. We’ve done this for two years now. The first year we did it, we were overwhelmed by the number of people who turned up in person to buy their £1 ticket. It looked like the audition phase of the X Factor, with queues and queues of people – some people waited four hours to buy their ticket. Last year we changed the system to make it easier for people to just buy their £1 ticket online – and that’s what we’ll do again.

“We work hard to show that the CBSO is for the people of Birmingham beyond the concert hall. We recently had a Pride Ball in collaboration with the Full Fatt Sound choir and I was there with our players, covered in glitter, dancing along to ‘I Will Survive’, and so proud that we had players from the CBSO there. Our brilliant cellist Helen did a most beautiful Cher tribute.

“There’s that old, oft-quoted saying that ‘an orchestra is an ensemble of possibilities’, and it’s true. Yes, we have a core classical repertoire that is so exciting to listen to and fall in love with – especially when you have one of the greatest orchestras in the world play it – I would recommend everyone give that a try.  And let’s also remember that a great orchestra is so much more than that, and that the opportunity to join in is for everyone.”

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Full details of all CBSO in the City events are available at cbso.co.uk/cbso-in-the-city.