Joe Stilgoe brought his own big-band edition of the long-running Friday Night is Music Night to Alexandra Palace Theatre with the BBC Concert Orchestra.
The jazz singer-pianist Joe Stilgoe led his own edition of Friday Night is Music Night at Alexandra Palace Theatre in Wood Green on Friday 25 September 2026. The BBC Concert Orchestra played with him.
Stilgoe was born in Sevenoaks in 1979 to the lyricist Richard Stilgoe and the opera singer Annabel Hunt, and read music at Southampton. He sings, plays and writes, between a jazz piano trio and a variety bill.
He has written three songs into the big-band leader Guy Barker’s suite Inferno 67, which premiered at Ronnie Scott’s. He also works regularly with the Hallé, the Royal Philharmonic and the John Wilson Orchestra.
Friday Night is Music Night has been broadcast live since 1953. His edition, A Jazz Club Symphony, was built for orchestra rather than trio, with material drawn mainly from his latest record, Welcome to the Club.
The theatre is the small room at Alexandra Palace, reopened in 2018 after eighty years dark. Its stage is much smaller than the Great Hall next door.
Stilgoe played with his new trio and the violinist and conductor Fiona Monbet. He had last shared a stage with the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2022.