The London Soundtrack Festival (LSF), London’s first dedicated annual Festival celebrating the music of film, TV and games, has today revealed elements of its spectacular inaugural programme that will take place across the capital in March 2025.
In association with BFI, the Festival will be hosted by some of the capital’s greatest cultural venues, including Royal Festival Hall, Alexandra Palace and BFI IMAX, and feature several of London’s leading orchestras and the biggest names in film, TV and games music. The Festival reflects London’s status as one of the most important cultural centres for soundtracks worldwide, with its legendary studios, musicians, facilities and leading creative artists across all music disciplines.
Founded by concert producer, broadcaster and musician Tommy Pearson, the London Soundtrack Festival is inspired by the life and music of Christopher Gunning, the multi-award-winning composer who wrote the iconic theme to ITV’s Poirot (starring David Suchet), the Bafta-winning score to the movie La Vie En Rose, and the jingles for famous ad campaigns for Martini and Black Magic.
Following his untimely death in March 2023, Christopher’s widow Sveta asked Tommy Pearson to create a festival to emulate Christopher’s extraordinary talent, skill and infectious, enthusiastic spirit. In his honour, each year the Festival will present the Gunning Inspiration Award to a major figure in the industry who has made a lasting impact on music with their distinction and craft. The recipient will also headline that year’s Festival.
Today, music for film, TV and games is more popular than ever with orchestral music concerts featuring film soundtracks now making up 30%, TV soundtracks 26%, and video game concerts 11% of all concerts in the UK since 2018 (Source: RPO Report).
Soundtrack music also acts as a gateway for new audiences to explore orchestral music, with film screenings featuring a live orchestra ranking in the Top 5 of orchestral concerts attended by newcomers (Source: RPO report). Online engagement has grown too with TikTok’s #soundtrack hashtag growing 84% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching 2.3 billion views (Source: BBC News).
With appreciation for film, TV and game music at an all-time high, this is the perfect time to celebrate the art form with some of its greatest practitioners.
