Harry Styles Steps Into Orchestral Territory at Meltdown, With Help from Jules Buckley

Harry Styles is spending summer as both stadium headliner and festival curator. Between his record-breaking run at Wembley, he’s programming this year’s Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre — an invitation previously extended to David Bowie, Patti Smith, and Nick Cave. A week into the event, he took the stage himself, not with a pop backing band, but beside the Jules Buckley Orchestra and the Gospel House Choir.

The concert reframed material from all four of his solo albums, including the recent Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. Styles played piano and guitar throughout a thirteen-song set, closing with a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. It was a deliberate step away from arena production, placing the songs in a formal orchestral setting.

“I’ve always been a lover of orchestral music, classical music, and it’s quite an intimidating field to step into as someone who doesn’t — cannot — read music,” Styles told the audience. He credited Buckley with making him feel welcomed: “He never made me feel like I didn’t belong there.”

The performance anchored a festival programme that still has five days to run, with upcoming sets from Mulatu Astatke, Dev Hynes, and Soulwax, plus a tribute to Vini Reilly. Styles, meanwhile, returns to Wembley for another sold-out show tonight — a rare act comfortably moving between pop spectacle and the unamplified risk of a conductor’s baton.