Before Dalston knew his name

Tony Oxley founded the Celebration Orchestra in 1984 — the same year he'd been living in self-imposed exile in Germany, having left a Britain he felt was unreceptive to his music. The orchestra was German-funded, German-broadcast, German-celebrated. London wasn't ready for it.

Cafe OTO didn't exist in 1984. It opened in 2008 in a former paint factory on Ashwin Street, Dalston — and became, in many ways, the venue that city should have had all along. In June 2026, 42 years after the orchestra's founding and shortly after Oxley's death, original members Phil Minton, Matt Wand, Marcio Mattos and Phil Wachsmann returned to play the London room that never got to hear them the first time.

The show that shouldn't have had to wait this long.