100 Club

The dingy 100 Club on Oxford Street is hardly where one would expect to hear classical music, nor, most surprisingly, would one ever imagine the acoustics of a venue more used to indie and rock to be a fit for the twinkle of a harp or the shimmer of a violin, however the organisers of monthly night Limelight were clearly not jaded when choosing their setting.

With tables and chairs arranged around the stage, the 100 Club feels part Ronnie Scott’s part community centre, and there’s a diverse crowd of classical aficionados, dressed up 20-somethings and their parents. As with a conventional gig, each night has a headline act preceded by supporting artists, and on this occasion it’s members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Foyle Future Firsts, who perform six short pieces with an interval in between, explaining the story of each composition beforehand and adding little titbits of trivia about the composer. Most of the pieces featured tonight are from the late 19th or 20th century (Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel) with the exception of a Mozart composition.

Limelight’s £10 entry fee makes classical music accessible to a new public that ordinarily may not be able to afford the £25+ for a concert ticket; additionally, the headline acts are of a high calibre - tonight we see guitar virtuoso and Prince’s Prize recipient Miloš Karadaglić, who delves straight into ‘Asturias’ as soon as he takes to the stage, a piece which requires great accomplishment and evidently hours of bleeding fingers. Given that Limelight has been running since July 2009 and tonight’s show is sold-out, London’s only classical club night can be considered a storming success.

100 Club

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