We create powerful new musical performances SPANNING soul and R﹠B to classical and choral.
“Multi-Story is a place where you can be who you want to be, you can be your creative self” - Toni, Young CreativE
Multi-Story Orchestra brings together professional musicians and young people to create powerful new orchestral works that tell real stories and challenge systemic inequity. We have evolved from performing classical repertoire to writing all of our own music, with young people aged 14-18 leading the creation of new music about issues that matter to them. Our youth-led, collaborative approach means young voices aren’t just included – they’re central to everything we do. By placing young people at the heart of our creative process, we make music that is relevant, fresh, and rooted in real lives.
Each year, we recruit a group of Young Creatives – local young people who commit to a year of intensive music-making with professional musicians, composers, and music directors. These collaborations result in original works that span a range of genres, from soul and R&B to classical and choral.
These are then performed by a choir of local young people and an orchestra of professional musicians at venues including our first home in Peckham’s Bold Tendencies car park, the Southbank Centre, and Fairfield Halls in Croydon. Our music tackles contemporary issues that matter to our Young Creatives: recent works have explored social media, identity, and climate change. Some performances incorporate actors and storytelling to explore deeper narratives.
Stories like that of Dupri McKoy – who first performed with us aged 12 and now works as a songwriter and choir leader with Multi-Story and beyond – demonstrate the pathways we've created for young people from diverse backgrounds to grow and develop through music. Our values of creativity, collaboration, and community guide everything we do: the music we create, how we work, and how we structure our organisation. Our vision is a world where music amplifies unheard voices.
Resident at Bold Tendencies in Peckham, South London, Multi-Story Orchestra has pioneered bringing orchestral music into communities since 2011. Highlights include the first BBC Proms performance from a car park in 2016 and performances across the UK, in car parks from Birmingham to Portsmouth. We also perform regularly at London’s Southbank Centre and Croydon’s Fairfield Halls, and gave our first international performance last spring, at Salzburg State Theatre in Austria. The Orchestra won the prestigious RPS Award for its moving performance piece The Endz in 2024. We became an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation in 2023.