Chatting with Kings Place jazz programmer Hannah Hutton

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, where I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.

One of my favourite venues in London is Kings Place, and this week I’m joined by their jazz programmer Hannah Hutton. Last week’s chat with Matt Carmichael was just ahead of his upcoming appearance with the Kings Place Jazz Orchestra.

Thanks to Kings Place upcoming guest Emma Rawicz for allowing me to play extracts from Paintbox alongside our conversation.

*** On 24 September 2026, I will be recording an episode in front of an audience with pianist, organist and composer Rufus Frowde - you can get your tickets here! This event is part of Hitchin Creative's Online & IRL programme, bringing live creative events to audiences both in person and online.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

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Hilary 0:25

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World. My name is Hilary Seabrook. For this episode, I'm joined by Hannah Hutton, who is jazz programmer at the marvellous King's Place. We're going to be talking about the amazing jazz events coming up at King's Place and how Hannah has set them up. What you're listening to now is Emma Ravich's The Oak Tree, and Emma will be appearing at King's Place very soon. All the links are in the show notes, but I hope you enjoy listening to my conversation with Hannah Hutton. I'm delighted that you've been able to join me because King's Place is one of my favourite venues. So I'm really glad that you're able to chat with me.

Hannah 1:32

Thank you for having me. It's a really nice opportunity to kind of talk about what we're doing at King's Place now and yeah, the exciting season ahead.

Hilary 1:40

Yeah, so the so you're jazz programmer. Yes. And we were having a little chat before about meeting at Jazz Ahead in Bremen, which was in April. Um, and I I really like the changes you've got, the plans you've got for this new season starting on the 20th of September with Matt Carmichael.

Hannah 2:03

Yes, with Matt Carmichael, he's performing with our new resident ensemble, the King's Place Jazz Orchestra. So that's kind of been a really nice organization and thing to sort of springboard the program from, and that's kind of how I my relationship with King's Place came about was through setting up the Jazz Orchestra. So it's been it's quite nice that that's kicking off our season, really.

Hilary 2:23

Yeah, and I've funnily enough, I've spoken to Matt, so that's gonna be my episode prior to this one. So that's good. So people can listen to that one as well. Um, so talk to me about the uh King's Place Jazz Orchestra. What on earth possessed you in these days of difficulties with musical finances to set about setting up a um a large ensemble?

Hannah 2:49

I think we really noticed that there was sort of a need to have a home for something like this and to give it the platform that it rightfully deserves. And Callum is obviously at the heart of the sort of British jazz big band scene as his work, you know, in either as an arranger or as a trombonist. And he's so part of that ecosystem that it kind of just made sense, you know, to have a separate thing that isn't just Callum's big band. Um, that can be like an umbrella for lots of different things, like the education work, the open rehearsals, you know, to welcome in different generations of players and to sort of mix up who's sitting next to each other um and get like a really nice group of people together to put on this incredible sound and music in the setting of Hall One, which I think the acoustic and like to give it that kind of special experience it deserves, I think was a really opportunity we couldn't really miss. And King's Place is a you know an incredible renowned venue, but to have a resident jazz ensemble was something new, you know, they've always programmed jazz and a long history of welcoming in lots of different types of you know jazz from across the spectrum. So to have that alongside resident classical orchestras and things like that and other resident ensembles was just incredible to be able to uh set that up last year. So yeah, it seems a bit mad, you know, but at the same time, it's um an incredible thing to be able to do. And so far it's working, which is being really positive.

Hilary 4:17

So one of the nice things about King's Place, and I suspect it's what makes it really work, is its proximity to obviously King's Cross and Pancras and the the sort of the transport hub, which must make it so much easier for musicians coming in from all over the place, too, and also for obviously for the audiences. Um and I think it's almost uh been fortuitous that uh King's Place started, and the that development of all of that area is is amazing, isn't it? And it's sort of become a real cultural hub.

Hannah 4:50

Definitely, and I think you know, we're able to welcome players from further afield. We we can bring Matt Carmichael for down from Scotland, and I think having that kind of we could even have people on the Eurostart, you know, we're so lucky that we're kind of in the centre of things and to see the area develop. And last week we did our first performance outside of the venue. We took KPJO over the road to the Summer Sounds Festival in Cold Drop's Yard, and so to be part of the community and see other organisations and people who live nearby or just passing through, you know, interact with the orchestra and also learn a little bit about King's uh place as a venue was an amazing opportunity. And I think there's so much sort of happening there, it's got a real buzz around the area. So to be part of that and to sort of increase the jazz programme and what we're offering for people is a really great opportunity.

Hilary 5:40

And of course, Callum Ow is such a great performer, he's he's a brilliant trombonist, but he's also coming into his own as a composer and arranger in in recent years, which is it's he's a real phenomenon, isn't he?

Hannah 5:54

He is, and I really can't think of anyone better, really, to be the creative director of the orchestra because he's so open-minded, you know, to so many different types. We were doing um an interview the other day and hearing him talk every time. And I've been working with Callum, you know, for five, six years and running his projects and things with him, and I'm still always so pleased to hear his thoughts on things, you know, and his perspective because he really has sort of done so much work on the ground to people at different levels and you know at different stages of their career, and he knows so much about the music and the art form. So it really allows us to kind of work with someone just at the heart of it, you know, and we can then you know perform his music and perform his arrangements. And we've been very lucky that a lot of the shows so far have been very um, very in collaboration with Callum's own, you know, back catalogue um and taking music from there. And it's allowed the orchestra to really get off to a great start, you know, by using his address book and you know, working with people that have he's got a relationship with, and also, you know, people he's just met. So some of the people playing in the orchestra last week were students he'd met whilst working at the Guild Hall and that he'd met on a big band project and kind of noticed. And yeah, it's amazing that we can kind of bring these people and this like network of the jazz scene together around King Space.

Hilary 7:14

Yeah. And education is obviously an important part of this as well. So, how how is that working out? Because that must take a huge amount of work to to organize. How are you how are you setting about that?

Hannah 7:26

So, we as soon as we set up the orchestra, we kind of knew that that was a core part of what our mission was, really, was to kind of help the next generation of big band musicians and keep the tradition alive per se. And I think as part of that, we set up the open rehearsals as the like first port of call. So every time the band rehearses before a show, we open up the doors to hall one and we welcome young musicians for free. Um these are always taking place in the afternoon and on a weekend, which really gives us like the chance to welcome people, you know, when they're not in school and not studying, um, and they get study scores, which are just like an amazing thing to see a whole big band score, you know, that Callum's arranged or someone else's arrangement, um, and look at it in detail and take it away and study it and have that time with it. So we um do free tickets and they've been like selling out, you know, quote unquote, straight away, which is amazing, um, and getting in such a variety of people and young children with their parents, you know, five or six-year-olds we had this week, which is amazing, all the way up to people studying or just graduated. Um, so we have the open rehearsal element, and at the end there's a QA so they can come and meet the band and ask questions, which is a real insight. You know, a lot of big bands at that level that you're not getting to see what's happening before the concert, you know, and I think for aspiring musicians or just people who enjoy the music, it's a really great opportunity to look behind and see what does it take to pull a show together like this on maybe two, three hours prep, which is what we had this week. You know, they've never seen the pad really before, never half of them haven't played together. Um, and we're able to kind of put it put together through Callum's direction. And that is a really important part of the process. And then within the band itself, we have about a quarter of them are young artists themselves. So, like I mentioned, a couple of them have been met at Guildhall, or they're people that we've heard about on the scene uh or recommendations, some other musicians in the band. And this really gives us a chance to kind of put these players next to someone like Andy Wood or Tom Walsh or you know, Gemma Moore, people who are day in, day out playing this kind of music in studios, in you know, other concert halls, in um in clubs. So that learning opportunity is incredible, you know, and as a paid proper professional opportunity, and they get to come to rehearsals and speak with Callum in advance. And I think that is something that we're really looking to grow in the future with the with the jazz orchestra, that we want that to be a core part that, you know, is maybe an audition process that we can get people in and have them for a bit longer and it be a real learning, a deeper learning opportunity and mentoring program. And then finally, the third kind of stand of our education work is our young artist platform. So before the show, we have a pre-concert performance in the music foyer, which is uh again a paid opportunity for a smaller band. So we've had duos, we've had trios, we've got a quartet coming up to perform, and they get to sort of have the 420 Cita concert halls worth of audience hear them as well. And it sets just such an amazing atmosphere before the show to have the foyer full and uh a buzz around and people having a drink and listening. And I think that's been amazing. And we had Sula Trio, which are an incredible group who have worked with Tomorrow's Warriors. They were playing for our last KPJO show. And we've now uh over the past few months rolled out the Young Artist Platform across all the genres. Um and we did an open call where we had like hundreds of applications. Um, and that is the first round just kind of getting books in at the moment where they know they're getting paired with shows in Hall One that we think that they could really benefit from uh those audiences hearing their music and being part of that kind of show and production. Um, so yeah, the Young Artists Platform is a great, great initiative, I think that we are really proud and it's kind of still growing. And as part of that, we now have a community producer uh at Kingspace and we uh we have Kingspace Belong, which is our community work, and Rachel, who's the folk programmer and our community producer, is like spearheading all of that work. So it feels like it's a real energy and time of kind of change in a positive way, and we're uh investing a lot in you know the education side of things and our community work because I think it's it's got to fit into the big picture, you know, whatever we're doing. It can't just kind of happen in isolation. So yeah, a long answer, but hopefully. No, that's brilliant. You get the picture.

Hilary 11:58

So you've got this new autumn-winter upcoming season, and you've got some amazing players, as I said, starting with Matt and uh KPJO. And then who else have you got? Because you've got some big names.

Hannah 12:10

We've got some big names, yeah. We've got Emma Ravit coming, and she's doing uh live recording as part of her uh BBC Three generation artist um pathway. We've got Ambrose Akinusia coming with his quartet, which is very, very exciting. We've got a very special album launch from Dave Holland, Norma Winston, and the London Vocal Projects. The London Vocal Projects have got a long history of performing at King's Place, so it's so nice to kind of welcome them back. And that's part of our edition record series, which we've uh been running for a number of years, um, and we're really, really pleased to be working with them on that show. We've also got lots of exciting shows in Hall 2, um, which is our second venue. Um, we've got Dreamscapes, a great young band between Birmingham and London. We've got a Duke Ellington project, which is called Beyond Category, and that's an album month with Jero the Damager uh coming over from America, which is really exciting. And then we've got a number of other events uh in collaboration with Sirius. So we're doing two of the Take Five uh showcase events. So we've got Olivia Cuttle and her Quintet performing and on Procedure, which is going to be an amazing double bill. We've got electronics um in that as well in Hall Two. And Hall Two is a brilliant space because we kind of move it around. We have seats, some of these gigs are seated, some of them are standing. Um we've got even got one in the round, which is an amazing um thing. And we did a few of those this year. We had um an uh album launch showcase for uh Johnny Mansfield's label called Resident Postcards, and Jasper Hoybe did one in the round as well. So yeah, we've got a real mixture, and then we've got Kai Deakinaby uh and Mac Wood doing a double bill. So yeah, kind of spoil for choice for Costa Festival. It's gonna be I'll be splitting myself in two most nights. Yeah, yeah.

Hilary 13:58

And it's um it's nice that I I like the way the the downstairs at King's Place is set out that you've got the the foyer and the bar area in the middle and then um hall one and then two, and they they they they work really well as two separate places. So when you have artists performing in the foyer, you mean the downstairs foyer, not the between the halls, which is great.

Hannah 14:22

So, like especially when we have two shows going on, you can sometimes have like two shows worth of people listening to the artist, and it fills the space for you to see because obviously it's a bit in the music base foyer. You have the escalator up and it kind of travels throughout the building, the sound. So it's a really it's a cool space to play in. And when I was starting off as a programmer, I chatted to kind of a lot of people on the scene, especially some like older musicians who have been here a lot longer than I have, and sort of asked, you know, like what was Jazz at King's Space like, you know, 15, 20 years ago, 10, 15 years ago. And it was really interesting hearing them talk. And apparently the foyer used to be a gig space, and that was kind of a regular gig that people did before shows, and they said kind of what a really good opportunity it was to be introduced to a new audience. So sometimes they'd have a jazz trio before a contemporary classical gig, you know, and it really bridged the gap. And I think King Space is a really beautiful venue for that for kind of really open-minded programming from the rest of the team and you know, welcoming such a variety of artists, and we have spoken word and the kind of the the sort of spectrum of events that we have in a year. If you saw it on paper, it's it's quite mind-boggling, and it's like over 400 events a year, so it's you know, it's a busy bustling space. Um, so having it in the foyer really can join them together and just having different audiences. And you know, some nights in the festival we've got a concert in hall one that might be uh a classical show, but actually in hall two, we've got a lot of the jazz or double bills, and we've got a really exciting commission um as part of the festival for Fergus McCready, um, which is taking place uh on the opening night of the festival, and that's with Chamber Music Scotland. Um, so that's a really exciting kind of collaboration that Sam, our artistic director, has been leading on with Sirius. So yeah, it's uh there's a lot going on.

Hilary 16:08

That's brilliant. I think the way the music business is at the moment, you've got to be able to collaborate. And hearing you talking about all of those, you because you're not just talking about the artists, you're also talking about the record labels, the promoters, you know, and these are the people who are, if you all work together, it will make the music world a much more uh sustainable place.

Hannah 16:29

Definitely. I think it also helps artists, you know. I I've been really lucky that the kind of programmers I've met since starting here and like the team and you know, the people that we've been working with, existing partnerships like Sirius or Edition, everybody's been very welcoming and collaborative is the big word, you know, and it does make things easier for artists, hopefully, if we're all on the same page and can kind of, you know, think about the bigger picture of how a tour might come together. And, you know, it's been really great working with other venues sometimes and talking with them about what we've got coming up and seeing, you know, if that might be of interest and helping sort of piece together um the bigger picture. I think it's a very hard time to be an artist, um, you know, and I think the more that we can kind of do to support that, the better. And yeah, King Space, I feel like it's giving a really nice umbrella to sort of do some of these things and collaborate with other organisations and people in the industry. Fantastic.

Hilary 17:22

Well, thank you so much for joining me, Hannah. It's been great to talk to you.

Hannah 17:26

Thank you so much for having me. It's been really great to talk a little bit about what we've got coming up. And yeah, we'd love to see people at Kingspace soon.

Hilary 17:56

And the track you're listening to now is Cowboys Aliens from Emma Rabbit, who is going to be appearing at King's Place very soon. Check out all of the links in the show notes and get down there if you can. Thank you for joining me once more for Harmonious World. I hope you have a really, really good week. Please do share, rate, and review wherever you get your podcast. It really does help people find harmonious world, and thank you for joining me once more.