‘A place of sanctuary’: Paul Keene on three years at St Martin-in-the-Fields

I’m a lifelong atheist and recovering Catholic. But when Chris Denton contacted me in his newly-appointed role as CEO of St Martin-in-the-Fields three years ago, and asked if I would be interested in joining his team as artistic advisor, I found that my initial ambivalence about being part of a working church was quickly assuaged by the amazingly progressive clergy and staff whose work with the homeless and vulnerable provides a place of sanctuary and support. They are the most outward-looking, inclusive and accepting group of people you’ll ever meet: it’s all about deeds not words. This is a remarkable institution, not least because of its genuine commitment to arts and culture, and the space ring-fenced for it in the hugely busy church diary.

The church is renowned, of course, as the original home of the eponymous Academy. But Chris and I immediately bonded over a shared artistic aspiration that this beautiful venue should have an additional string to its bow beyond the much-loved ‘Handel-by-Candle’ concerts that delight the capital’s visitors. In addition to those, and to the church’s busy in-house programme from St Martins Voices, our aim has been to build a concert series of the highest quality; one that reflects the beauty and history of the venue, its glorious acoustic, its pre-eminent location at the heart of London, and the warm welcome it offers to all. Effectively, to make St Martins London’s hub for choral and baroque music.

Having worked with a range of national and international ensembles at the Barbican, I started ringing around my previous colleagues to invite them to perform here. Perhaps we got lucky, as one of a relatively small number of venues confidently reopening for business at a time when players needed work as the nightmare of the pandemic began to lift. But the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and has led to the development of flourishing relationships with ensembles like the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestras (who have made St Martins their London home), The Sixteen, The English Concert, Tenebrae, I Fagiolini, Gesualdo Six, City Music Foundation, Darbar Arts and Culture, and more. The space is perfectly scaled for small- to medium-scale baroque and choral music, as well as for chamber orchestra (the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields is naturally the principal orchestral partner of St Martin-in-the-Fields, its historic London home, and we regularly host concerts from the London Mozart Players, The 12 Ensemble, and others).

Musicians seem to love performing here, and I confess that after 10 years at the Barbican the church’s warm, beautiful acoustic has been a balm to my ears. There have been many fantastic concerts, with more to come in the forthcoming season: a range of music from Plinio to Palestrina to Pärt. In addition to Bach’s B minor mass with the English Concert, the Monteverdi Choir conducted by Christophe Rousset will present Bach Cantatas alongside Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit. We also have and rare Roman polychoral music from I Fagiolini; the annual Messiah from The Sixteen; Latin-American baroque from Ex Cathedra; Handel oratorio from the Dunedin Consort.

We’re working in a traditional context, and for Phase One of programme development I have kept the emphasis on UK baroque and chamber music, with international soloists coming in via the Academy and occasional long-term international partnerships with ensembles like Apollo’s Fire, the USA’s finest period-instrument group. Young and emerging artists feature in our popular Friday lunchtime concert series (including regular concerts with Indian classical artists, a personal favourite of mine since I started programming them in the 1990s).

But we seize the chance to experiment when we can. Our first Music for Mindfulness concert with Tenebrae this October combines guided meditation from Michael McCaffrey with choral masterworks from Rachmaninov’s Vespers to Allegri’s Misere; another site-specific crypt event in January from Gesualdo Six builds on the success of Secret Byrd (which we commissioned in 2022 and is still touring the world!). Newer names starting to appear in the programme include Kali Malone, Maya Youssef, Sansara, Ichiko Ayoba, US folk collective Winterborn, and Samora Pinderhughes – artists whose concerns match St Martin’s core values of social justice, sanctuary and inclusivity.

Those values matter here, because all our concert, catering and commercial activity ultimately supports the church’s vital social justice work, particularly with homeless people. The church is open to all: we are the parish church of Buckingham Palace, yet alongside us sits the day centre for the church’s Connection programme for London’s rough sleepers, who are often to be seen queuing up outside. Unlike other major venues, we have no subsidy and have to make the programme work on box office income alone. The post-Covid environment requires agility and imagination, combined with some entrepreneurship and risk. There’s no financial cushion, yet with a small but committed and ‘can-do’ team, plus a shared spirit of enterprise with our artists, somehow, we make it work by a mix of own promotions, box office splits, curated rentals and external support.

These three years have been quite a journey, and there are many exciting opportunities ahead. The other day, I sat listening to the 12 Ensemble play Jonny Greenwood’s liquid Water in the August twilight. Above the musicians – bathed in candlelight, the church’s warm acoustic resonating in sympathy with the sound of their strings – hovered Shirazeh Houshiary’s extraordinary east window. During evening concerts it seems to be illuminated from within – I’m not quite sure how! It’s a simple, mystical and profoundly contemplative symbol that resonates with people of all faiths and none, one that defies explanation: a portal between the physical and metaphysical. It struck me that music, at its best, is just such a portal – and that is the magic of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The season opens on 17 September with the London premiere of Alec Roth’s A Road Less Travelled performed by Mark Padmore in the Crypt.

Paul Keene is artistic advisor to St Martin-in-the-Fields and a freelance programmer and consultant. His first career was in music publishing, prior to thirty years as a concert programmer and promoter, initially as director of programming at Symphony Hall & Town Hall Birmingham and then as classical music programmer at the Barbican.