Next month, Ronnie Scott’s reopens its transformed upstairs space to a different kind of experience. Juliette Barber speaks to Lizzie Ball and James Pearson about intimacy, listening and bringing classical music into one of Soho’s most storied venues.
Mention jazz and London in the same breath and the imagination tends to head quickly to Ronnie Scott’s in Soho. For more than six decades, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has been synonymous with the city’s jazz life – a room defined as much by atmosphere as by repertoire, where listeners can eat, drink and immerse themselves in live music, and where artists from Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald to Chet Baker and Nina Simone have taken the stage.
From February 2026, that story gains a new dimension. Following an extensive redevelopment, Upstairs at Ronnie’s reopens as a purpose-built 140-capacity auditorium, and for the first time in the club’s history, Ronnie Scott’s launches a weekly Monday classical series. Curated jointly by pianist and Artistic Director James Pearson and violinist, vocalist and producer Lizzie Ball, the programme introduces chamber music, reimagined orchestral works and conversation-led performances into the heart of a venue best known for jazz.
The move is less a departure than an extension. Pearson and Ball are keen to emphasise that the classical strand grows directly out of Ronnie Scott’s ethos: world-class musicianship presented in an informal, social setting, where barriers between performers and listeners are deliberately lowered. “It’s a jazz approach to playing classical music,” Pearson says. “With integrity.”
From bar to auditorium
The physical transformation of Upstairs at Ronnie’s underpins the new programming. Previously a bar that also hosted live music, the upstairs room has been rebuilt as a dedicated performance space.
“Before, it was never really a venue,” Pearson explains. “It wasn’t acoustically treated. Now we’ve created a sort of mini downstairs, but upstairs – a proper concert room.” Tiered seating curves gently around the stage, with tables retained but sightlines improved, and a new Yamaha grand piano selected personally by Pearson during a visit to Hamburg. “Because the venue is endorsed by Yamaha, they gave me three to choose from,” he says. “It’s a handmade instrument, and it makes a huge difference – especially for classical players, as the piano is often the first thing they ask about.”
For Ball, the changes offer reassurance as well as opportunity. “A lot of the artists we’re inviting in are coming from the classical world,” she says. “Knowing there’s a piano worthy of a concert hall gives them confidence straight away. In a small venue, that’s often the sticking point.”
The redevelopment extends beyond the stage. Upstairs at Ronnie’s will operate with its own kitchen, overseen by executive chef Steven Connolly, and while dining is optional rather than required, food and drink are integral to the experience. “You can eat if you want, but you don’t have to,” Ball notes. “Most people end up eating because it’s just so nice. It feels relaxed – not austere.”
A long runway
The seeds of the new series were planted more than a decade ago. Ball first introduced Classical Kicks to Ronnie Scott’s in 2012, staging what became the venue’s first classical nights in the then upstairs bar. Presented several times a year, the evenings brought together string quartets, improvisers and genre-crossing collaborators.
“It was a real mix,” Ball recalls. “Someone once described it as a musical tasting menu. I’d programme five or six different acts – string quartets, James improvising over Bach, beatbox – but classical was always the strong thread.”
Those nights left a lasting impression. “People who are now in senior roles at Ronnie’s remember being junior staff members at those gigs,” Pearson says. “It was such a pleasure hearing classical music in that setting – people having steak and wine, listening to high-quality performances. Every night was packed.”
The challenge at the time was scale. Upstairs proved too small, but moving the concerts downstairs felt inappropriate. “Downstairs is a jazz heritage site,” Pearson says. “That’s not something you just shift around.”
The current redevelopment offered a solution. “When the decision was made to refurbish upstairs properly, it opened the door,” Pearson continues. “Let’s create nights that are genuinely different – including classical.”
A house band for classical
At the heart of the Monday series is the Ronnie Scott’s Classical All Stars, a chamber ensemble directed by Pearson and conceived in the spirit of a jazz house band. Rather than a fixed line-up, the group operates as a flexible collective drawn from a wider pool of around 20 to 25 leading UK musicians, with a core ensemble at its centre.
“We’ve created our own house band,” Ball explains. “There’s a core of eight of us, and then, depending on the programme, we invite players very deliberately. If we’re presenting a concerto movement and need an exceptional cellist, we’ll ask someone like Gabriella Swallow – and the arrangements are written with those musicians in mind.”
The result is a flexible ensemble that allows large-scale orchestral and symphonic works to be reimagined for intimate forces without losing their character, with instrumentation shifting from programme to programme to include strings, winds, percussion and bass. “It’s a really beautiful way of working,” Ball adds, “because the music is shaped around the people in the room.”
“There’s a long tradition of reducing orchestral music,” Pearson says. “In the 1920s, people would play movements of symphonies in salons. We’re doing something similar, but with the flexibility and listening culture you get from jazz.”
Pearson’s arrangements allow for selective improvisation where appropriate, particularly in repertoire with shared classical-jazz lineage. “It’s about framing pieces differently without losing their integrity,” he says. “Otherwise it would
be naff.”
Ball is emphatic about the skill involved. “James has an extraordinary ability to reduce large-scale works without losing anything,” she says. “We’ve played Copland pieces written for huge forces as a duo and audiences genuinely say they don’t feel like there’s anything missing – that’s the magic.”
The All Stars programmes sit alongside performances by visiting artists, including The King’s Singers, who appear in April 2026 with a cabaret-style programme, and projects such as Chineke!, whose residency brings chamber repertoire into the space.
Classical close up
A third strand, Close Up Classical, reflects Ball and Pearson’s interest in storytelling and context. Presented three or four times a year, the series invites cultural figures to share the music that has shaped their lives, with live performances woven through conversation.
“It’s a bit like a Desert Island Discs-style format,” Pearson explains, “but focused entirely on classical music.” Guests select pieces that resonate personally, which Pearson then arranges for the Classical All Stars.
The opening event in February features actress Juliet Stevenson, followed by composer David Arnold and author Harriet Constable in March. For Ball, the appeal lies in informality. “There are no curtains,” she says. “We talk, we share anecdotes, sometimes we interrupt. It feels like a big sitting room.”
Constable’s appearance, built around her novel The Instrumentalist, opens a wider historical conversation. “The book explores the women musicians for whom Vivaldi wrote – prodigies whose work was never credited,” Ball explains. “We’re pairing that with music by Vivaldi and Tartini, alongside a new piece by Deborah Pritchard that imagines what those women might write today. It’s spine-tingling.”
Beyond the stage
The sense of connection extends past the performance itself. As part of the redevelopment, Ronnie Scott’s will open areas previously closed to the public, creating The Greene Rooms, a members’ lounge and artist space named in honour of owner Sally Greene.
“There’s always been a backstage bar at Ronnie’s,” Pearson says. “A place where musicians decompress, meet people, play, so opening that culture up again feels important.”
For Ball, the move is personal. She recalls meeting Nigel Kennedy in the old members’ bar early in her career – an encounter that later led to collaboration and a lifetime friendship. “Ronnie’s holds a lot of memories for me,” she says. “My first gig here with James, my dad, who revered Ronnies, visiting the place for the first time – it’s all wrapped up together.”
New audience, same spirit
Introducing weekly classical programming into a jazz institution inevitably raises questions. Ball acknowledges the anomaly. “Some people go, ‘Classical? How’s that going to sit?’” she says. “For us, it’s about making sure audiences feel as welcome and held as they do at a jazz gig.”
Pearson agrees. “Jazz has always encompassed a wide range of approaches,” he says. “And classical, too, has a history of improvisation and flexibility that’s sometimes been forgotten. The lines are more blurred than we think – and that’s a good thing.”
The proximity of the new space plays a crucial role. “When performers are that close to the audience, it changes how they play,” Ball observes. “Chamber musicians listen differently. You see the relationship between players – and that’s the height of genuine music-making, whether you call it jazz or classical.”
As Upstairs at Ronnie’s prepares to open, Pearson and Ball are clear about their ambition. “We’re not trying to turn classical music into something else,” Pearson says. “We’re just offering a different way to hear it.”
In a room where history has always been made at close quarters, that may prove to be the most radical gesture of all.
