Kew the music 2024

8 July 2024: An evening with Monty Don

In a special spoken word show, BBC Gardeners’ World presenter and writer Monty Don will share his passion for gardens and the unique role they play in human inspiration and wellbeing. 

Monty Don has been making TV programmes for over 30 years and has been lead presenter of BBC Gardener’s World since 2003. 

After a sellout tour in 2022 Monty is back to share tales from his career, detail his favourite gardens, and reveal how he fell in love with the natural world. Discover how he created his beautiful garden at Longmeadow, his favourite gardening practices, and the magical impact of the seasons.

With something for everyone, join Monty for a celebration of nature in one of the most famed gardens in the world.

Interviewed by BBC Radio 2’s Tina Daheley

9 July 2024: Mika

Mika has crafted a world of gritty romance amidst the joy and playfulness of technicoloured alternative pop. With his defining single ‘Grace Kelly’ in 2007, he sold over 3 million copies worldwide and was No.1 in the UK for 5 weeks. His debut album ‘Life in Cartoon Motion’ has had over 2.8 billion streams. 

Following this, Mika has released a further four studio albums and has toured extensively. In 2022 he was an international host of the Eurovision Song Contest, where he performed a dazzling medley to 161 million viewers worldwide and in this year performed at festivals worldwide including a triumphant set at the Isle of Wight Festival. 

Supported by Sammy Rae & The Friends and Essence Martins

10 July 2024: Ronan Keating

Ronan Keating shot to fame in the early 90’s with Boyzone, who in their first five years became one of the biggest pop bands ever, enjoying 16 top five hit singles, six of which hit the No.1 spot, amongst them the likes of ‘Words’, ‘No Matter What’, ‘All That I Need’, and their first hit, ‘Love Me For A Reason’. 

In August of 2000, Ronan released his debut, self-titled album. It shot straight to No.1 in the UK Album Charts, with two No.1 singles. It contained the two number one singles ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ and ‘Life Is A Rollercoaster’, and went on to sell 4.4 million copies around the world, firmly establishing Ronan as an artist in his own right.

Supported by Lucy Spraggan and Tom Speight

11 July 2024:  Passenger

Passenger is a multi-award winning, platinum-selling singer-songwriter. Whilst still known for his busking, he made the journey from street corners to stadiums with 'Let Her Go', which reached No.1 in 19 countries and has now notched up more than six billions streams globally. It is the 2nd most Shazammed song of all time. Yet ‘Let Her Go’ is just one song from a catalogue that extends across 13 albums in 13 years, including 8 that have reached the UK Top 40. 

His most recent release on 10 November is a re-working for the anniversary of his breakthrough album ‘All The Little Lights’ which features collaborations with Ed Sheeran and Foy Vance.

Supported by Gabrielle Aplin and Newton Faulkner

12 July 2024: JLS

The Friday headliner is one of Britain’s most beloved boybands – JLS. They released their debut album in 2009 which has since sold over 1 million copies in the UK alone. They have also won two BRIT awards and five MOBO awards. 

JLS - Aston Merrygold, JB Gill, Marvin Humes and Oritsé Williams - released their most recent album ‘2.0’ in 2021 and will perform tracks from that as well as huge singles like ‘Beat Again’, ‘Everybody in Love’ and ‘Love You More’ to Kew Gardens next summer.   

Supported by Tinchy Stryder

13 July 2024: Beverley Knight 

Beverley Knight is no stranger to the spotlight and is a performer who can do it all – both a star of the West End stage and an astounding singer with a prolific music career, with huge hits like ‘Shoulda Woulda Coulda’, ‘Come As You Are’, ‘Keep This Fire Burning’, and more.

A national treasure, Beverley was awarded an MBE in 2007 for services to British music and charity, has won three MOBO Awards, been nominated for Best Female at the Brit Awards three times, and after several nominations, last year won her first Olivier Award.

Beverley marked the milestone of turning 50 last year with her ninth studio album ‘The Fifth Chapter’, including 5 massive radio singles & her biggest ever tour of the UK. Knight will star this year in Sister Act The Musical in the West End, following recent roles in the likes of Memphis The Musical, Cats, and The Drifters Girl.

Supported by Aṣa and Marisha Wallace

14 July 2024: An evening with Richard Ashcroft

Richard Ashcroft is a two-time Ivor Novello winner (Songwriter of the Year in 1998 and Outstanding Contribution to British Music in 2019) who has released five Top 5 solo albums, including the #1 debut 'Alone With Everybody'.

He first came to attention with The Verve, with who he released one of the biggest albums of the era in the shape of 'Urban Hymns' (the UK's 18th biggest selling album of all-time) as well as a succession of anthems which remain staples of his live set today, including 'The Drugs Don't Work', 'Bittersweet Symphony', 'Lucky Man' and 'Sonnet'. His most recent album, ‘Acoustic Hymns’, was released in 2022 and reached No.2 in the UK Album Chart. 

Supported by Jamie Webster and Callum Beattie