Windborne: Music For Midwinter
| Lauren Breunig | vocals, jaw harp |
|---|---|
| Jeremy Carter-Gordon | vocals, banjo, drum |
| Lynn Rowan | vocals, kanklės, jaw harp, feet percussion |
| Will Rowan | vocals, guitar, drum |
Windborne, the acclaimed American vocal quartet, present Music for Midwinter in England for the first time, with songs from their seasonal album ‘To Warm the Winter Hearth’. Blending English carols, solstice songs, wassails, early American folklore, and global polyphony, their programme celebrates the warmth of community in the year’s coldest season.
Renowned for radiant harmonies and commanding stage presence, Windborne combines scholarship with passion. Years of study with singing masters in Corsica, Lithuania, the Basque country and beyond inform their unique sound. Songlines hails them as ‘the most exciting vocal group in a generation’, while KLOF exclaims Windborne have ‘an almost supernatural grasp of harmony singing.’
Beyond their winter repertoire, Windborne are known for albums such as Song on the Times, exploring workers’ struggles past and present, and Of Hard Times & Harmony, which reimagines songs of reflection and action from movements for social and environmental justice with contemporary resonance. Their commitment to justice and solidarity gives their performances rare depth.
More than a concert, Music for Midwinter is an invitation to gather, reflect, and celebrate resilience. With stories, humour, and moments of audience participation, Windborne offer an evening of beauty, connection, and transcendent voices to warm the winter hearth.
This event will last approximately 85 minutes, plus an interval.
Concessions & Under 30s tickets
Kings Place Concessions Tickets
We want to ensure that people who may be struggling financially to purchase a ticket can still enjoy visiting Kings Place. A limited number of tickets are allocated for certain events (if the ticket type does not show in the booking pathway, it means they are not available for this event or have all been sold). Concessions tickets are accessible for people on the following criteria (for more information visit our FAQs)
- Pension Credit
- Universal Credit
- Disability Benefit
- Income Support or Job Seekers allowance
- Students
£10 ‘Under 30s’ tickets
A limited number of £10 tickets for attendees aged under 30 are available for certain shows. To purchase an ‘Under 30s’ ticket, please choose the ‘Under 30s’ price type when selecting your ticket(s). If the option does not appear, this means all ‘Under 30s’ tickets have sold out or are not available for this performance. Please note that proof of age may be requested at the venue. The £10 offer does not apply to premium price categories.
Plan your visit
Getting here
Kings Place is situated just a few minutes’ walk from King’s Cross and St Pancras stations, one of the most connected locations in London and now the biggest transport hub in Europe.
Our address is:
90 York Way, London, N1 9AG.
The Venue
Our performance spaces are situated on the lower ground floor. Hall One, Hall Two and St Pancras are located in level -2, reached by stairs, escalator and lift from the ground floor entrance level.
Event Times
Door times indicate auditorium entrance times only. Visitors are welcome to enjoy the Kings Place seating areas, gallery-level art, canal-side terrace, café, restaurant and bar throughout the day and evening.
- Our events begin promptly at the advertised start time. Typically, there is no support unless otherwise stated.
- We recommend arriving in good time before the performance. The Hall doors will open 30 minutes before the performance to allow time to take your seats, or to choose a space for standing shows.
- Latecomers will be admitted at a suitable break in the performance where possible
Access
We aim to make your visit to Kings Place as comfortable as possible. For more information about the accessibility of Kings Place, including details about our Access Scheme, please visit this page.
If you would like to discuss your access requirements with a member of our team, please get in touch with the Box Office team at info@kingsplace.co.uk.
Food & Drink
Rotunda Bar & Restaurant
Rotunda, situated on the ground floor of Kings Place, offers a unique dining and drinking experience alongside Regent’s Canal. The concert bar in the venue foyer will also be open for select events.
Green & Fortune Café
Recently re-furbished and now open with a new look, the Green & Fortune Café is open for selected concerts. Serving hot and cold food and drinks, including sandwiches, salads, soup, stew and a pie of the day, alongside a choice of cakes made by the on-site bakery team. See here for selected concert dates and standard opening hours.
Windborne
Windborne —Lauren Breunig, Jeremy Carter-Gordon, Lynn Rowan, and Will Rowan—met through New England’s vibrant folk music community, honing their craft in harmony singing and dance traditions. With over twenty years of studying polyphonic vocal traditions around the world, they have toured extensively across the United States, Australia, and Europe, performing at major folk and world music festivals, concert halls, and cultural venues.
Their discography charts a journey of artistic growth and social engagement. Midwinter Meeting (2013), their first quartet album, showcased their years of study with singing masters of traditional harmony from Corsica, Bulgaria, Georgia, the Basque Country, and North America. This early project revealed their deep immersion in international vocal styles and their extraordinary skill in blending voices across cultures.
Windborne’s viral rise came in 2017 when a spontaneous video of them singing the 1840s protest song ‘The Song of the Lower Classes’ outside Trump Tower struck a chord worldwide, reaching millions of viewers. That same year, they released Song on the Times, an album connecting historic union and protest songs with contemporary struggles for justice. The project established them as singers with both conscience and artistry, using harmony to highlight solidarity across centuries.
Their next album, Of Hard Times & Harmony (2019), explored political and social themes using old songs with fresh arrangements, balancing timeless storytelling with modern resonance. The quartet continued to develop a reputation for performances that combine breathtaking blend, scholarship, humour, and heartfelt connection.
In 2024, Windborne launched their most ambitious project yet: To Warm the Winter Hearth, an album and illustrated book of midwinter songs. Its crowdfunding campaign broke records, raising nearly $500,000 from more than 8,000 backers—making it the most-funded vocal album ever. The project underscores Windborne’s gift for creating music that celebrates resilience, beauty, and community in the year’s coldest season.
Reviews
‘Sublime and superb… [Windborne] exhausts superlatives! Intelligent, witty, formally exquisite and brimful of energy.’ RnR MAGAZINE
‘Subverting expectations and redefining the genre [of vocal music]… just absolutely phenomenal!” BBC Travelling Folk
‘The best musical discovery of the year…stunningly powerful. Windborne sets a new bar for harmony singing today!’ NPR
‘The vocal art of the musicians is of the highest quality and is probably comparable only to The Kings Singers or – in a sense – to The Hilliard Ensemble….’ Era Jazzu
‘These songs grab you from the first notes… it is eerily perfect, from A to Z’ Rootstime