Totally Thames 2025 Festival Lineup Revealed

Returning for another phenomenal year, Totally Thames offers an awe-inspiring festival of music, dance, film, installations, walks, river clean-ups and more. This month-long programme invites Londoners to connect with and enjoy the capital’s multi-faceted river. Curated and managed by Thames Festival Trust, the team works collaboratively with artists and communities to celebrate the river’s past, present and future.

With the river facing mounting environmental pressures, from pollution to habitat loss, this year’s festival places a renewed focus on ecology and care. Artists across a variety of disciplines will respond to the river’s challenges, using creative expression to spark awareness, inspire dialogue, and imagine more sustainable futures.

Composer Narotam Horn will kickstart the festival as he presents River Recital 2025 Summer Concert on 7th September at The Arts Ark, Tower Bridge Moorings. This unique river stage is set against the backdrop of Tower Bridge on London’s only floating gardens. The concert honours the river’s biodiversity while amplifying the voices of communities living along its banks. In partnership with the Museum of Homelessness, this mesmerising performance will explore the intersection of ecological and social vulnerability, raising funds for housing support and celebrating alternative ways of living with water, sparking important conversations around

homelessness, sustainability and social change.

On 13th September at Crossness Pumping Station, Conduitwill see five femme artists from across the London jazz scene use improvisation, repertoire, loops and synthesis to explore elemental change and collective care. Led by Bridget Walsh, the performance draws from lived experiences and environmental research, inviting audiences to cohabit and collaborate alongside. With water as both theme and medium, Conduit highlights how artistic practice can help us better understand the climate crisis and beyond, through emotion, sound and community. Through music, meditation, soundscapes, synthesis, loops and samples, Bridget Walsh, Rosie Turton, Isobella Burnham, Momoko Gill and Jan Halen will create and co-regulate in real time, exploring everything from wildfires to revolution, misogyny to mutual-aid, lullabies to Land Back. The space will be opened with a special guest set from virtuoso guitarist and expansive vocal artist, Rosie Frater-Taylor.

Totally Thames festival 2025 premieres River of Sound: an exciting new partnership with London’s Community Radio Station for the Arts & Culture, Resonance FM presenting exclusive riverine long form avant-audio excursions throughout the festival month of September.

Choreographer Samara Langham’s SKYE ZONE Burial transforms the Brunel Museum into a dream-like aquatic world, where dancers embody water’s dual nature: nurturing and unpredictable. Set in a primordial, imagined world, through movement and original sound design, the piece reflects on transformation, fragility and our shared interdependence with the natural world — an urgent reminder for audiences.

This year’s Great River Race on 20th September brings together more than 300 crews for a 21.6-mile journey from Millwall to Richmond, supporting charities from across the UK and beyond. Amongst the hundreds of vessels in this colourful ‘river marathon’, a junior crew from Cornwall flies a dual Ukrainian-Cornish flag, symbolising hope and solidarity, while The Firkin Berks row in memory of boat designer Bob Berk in his handcrafted vessel.

At St Katharine Docks, on 6th and 7th September, the 16th Classic Boat Festival will offer visitors a close-up view of over 50 vintage vessels, including Dunkirk Little Ships and heritage tugs. Alongside these incredible events, will be a programme of talks, music, family activities and nautical antiques invites reflection on how London’s stories of the past can guide more sustainable stewardship of the river’s future.

Thames Festival Trust gratefully acknowledges Port of London Authority’s sponsorship of the Totally Thames festival. Jenny Cooper-Low, PLA’s Thames Vision and Partnerships Lead comments, Totally Thames plays a vital role in bringing the river to life for Londoners and visitors alike; not just as a waterway, but as a space of history, culture, and opportunity. The PLA is proud to support the festival in making the Thames more accessible and inclusive, particularly for young people and underrepresented communities. Through creative programming and community engagement, Totally Thames is helping to raise awareness of foreshore safety, promote environmental sustainability, and inspire future careers in the maritime sector; all of which directly contribute to the goals of our vision for the tidal Thames and our broader commitment to social impact.

Website:  https://thamesfestivaltrust.org/

Main Image: Totally Thames 2025 - SKYE ZONE Burial - Photo - Deborah Jaffe

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