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in world-class venues almost every day of the year. The London Symphony Orchestra is in residence at the Barbican Centre, although other top orchestras—including the Philharmonia and the Royal Philharmonic—also perform here. The Barbican also hosts chamber-music concerts, with celebrated orchestras such as the City of London Sinfonia. Wigmore Hall, a lovely venue for chamber music, is renowned for its song recitals by up-and-coming young singers. The Southbank Centre has an impressive international music season, held in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the small Purcell Room as well as in the Royal Festival Hall, now completely refurbished. Full houses are rare, so even at the biggest concert halls you should be able to get a ticket for £12. If you can’t book in advance, arrive at the hall an hour before the performance for a chance at returns.

TIP Lunchtime concerts take place all over the city in smaller concert halls, the big arts-center foyers, and churches; they usually cost less than £5 or are free, and feature string quartets, singers, jazz ensembles, or gospel choirs. St. John’s, Smith Square, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields are popular locations. Performances usually begin about 1 pm and last one hour.

Classical-music festivals range from the stimulating avant-garde Meltdown (www.meltdown.southbankcentre.co.uk), curated each year by a prominent musician—recently Patti Smith or David Bowie—at the Southbank Centre in June, to church hall recitals including the Spitalfields Festival (www.spitalfieldsfestival.org.uk), a program of recitals held in beautiful, historic East End churches in June, December, and January, and the monthlong City of London Festival (www.colf.org) in the Square Mile during the summer. A great British tradition since 1895, the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (more commonly known as the “Proms” | www.bbc.co.uk/proms) run eight weeks, from July to September, at the Royal Albert Hall. Despite an extraordinary quantity of high-quality concerts, it’s renowned for its (atypical) last night: a madly jingoistic display of singing “Land of Hope and Glory,” Union Jack–waving, and general madness. For regular Proms, tickets run £5–£90, with hundreds of standing tickets for £5 available at the hall on the night of the concert.

TIP The last night is broadcast in Hyde Park on a jumbo screen, but even here a seat on the grass requires a paid ticket that can set you back around £25.

CONTEMPORARY ART

In the 21st century, the focus of the city’s art scene has shifted from the past to the future. Helped by the prominence of the Tate Modern, London’s contemporary art scene has never been so high profile. In publicly funded exhibition spaces like the Barbican Gallery, the Hayward Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Serpentine Gallery, London now has a modern-art environment on a par with Bilbao and New York. Young British Artists (YBAs, though no longer as young as they once were) Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, and others are firmly planted in the public imagination. The celebrity status of British artists is in part thanks to the annual Turner Prize, which always stirs up controversy in the media during a monthlong display of the work, usually at Tate Britain.

Depending on whom you talk to, the Saatchi Gallery is considered to be either the savior of contemporary art or the wardrobe of the emperor’s new clothes. It recently reopened in the former Duke of York’s barracks off Chelsea’s Kings Road.

The South Bank’s Tate Modern may house the giants of modern art, but East London is where the innovative action is. There are dozens of galleries in the fashionable spaces around Old Street, and the truly hip have already moved even farther east, to areas such as Bethnal Green. The Whitechapel Art Gallery and Jay Jopling’s influential White Cube in Hoxton Square remain at the epicenter of the new art establishment and continue to show exciting work by emerging British artists.

On the first Thursday of every month, more than 100 museums and galleries of East London stay open ’til late (more information at | www.firstthursdays.co.uk).