What you need to know:
Doors open at 6:00 pm for drinks and snacks.
The performance will start promptly at 6:30 pm.
Food and wine will be available to purchase throughout the night.
AWE London 2026
AWE launches its first spring mini-festival in London with a programme exploring the core values of the Anzac spirit, forged during the First World War by New Zealand and Australian soldiers. While there is no single definitive list, these values are often understood to include courage, sacrifice, service, comradeship or mateship, remembrance and endurance, alongside a deep sense of fairness and a natural aversion to class distinctions. Over time they have come to represent a powerful part of New Zealand and Australian identity, reflecting an approach to life and a distinctive character on the world stage.
Hosted in two iconic and intimate London venues, AWE traces a journey from the street scenes passing the window of Fidelio Cafe at ground level to the serene vistas from the top of St Pancras Clocktower, a Victorian landmark overlooking central London. Across these two performances we explore Anzac values through human experience rather than military narrative, focusing on music’s capacity to honour sacrifice, strengthen connection and hold space for remembrance.
Programme
Exploring the ANZAC values of courage, remembrance, sacrifice and mateship, Gideon Klein’s String Trio is a unique example of artistic resolve in the most challenging circumstances. Completed in the Terezín concentration camp just days before Klein’s deportation to Auschwitz, it launches our journey from ground level, music as witness and legacy.
Ross Harris’s Notes from the Front then sets the wartime letters of New Zealand soldier, musician and mathematician Alexander Aitken, honouring his personal voice as an act of remembrance, and bringing the human reality of service and sacrifice into sharp focus.
Dvořák’s vivid Piano Quartet No. 2 completes the programme. Written at a moment when international success was increasingly drawing him away from home, the work remains rooted in the Czech musical spirit that was becoming integral to Czech national identity, and in the chamber music ideal of four voices in conversation, interdependent, equal and moving forward together.
Gideon Klein String Trio - 13’
Ross Harris: Notes from the front (Songs for Corporal Aitken) - 15’
Dvorak: Piano Quartet No.2 in E-flat major, op.87
Yura Lee - violin/viola
Benjamin Baker - violin
Maciej Kulakowski - cello
Louis Schwizgebel - piano
(TBC) - tenor
AWE Festival London 2026 continues on Tuesday 21 April with Service, Remembrance and Endurance at St Pancras Clock Tower at 7pm. For more info visit AWE UK website