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Ground-breaking music festival Unsound returns to the Barbican for a specially curated evening highlighting some of the most inventive talents in adventurous music.

London-based composer Mica Levi will present a selection of pieces for large-scale string ensemble, including a new UK premiere commissioned by Unsound, and performed by the Sinfonietta Cracovia.

Sinfonietta Cracovia is one of the leading chamber ensembles in Poland, praised for its performances of contemporary music from the avant-garde to film music. It is famous for its interpretations of the works of Krzysztof Penderecki, the mentor and patron to many of the orchestra’s projects.

Raphael Rogiński is a guitarist, composer, improviser and musicologist. His 2024 album Žaltys (Unsound, 2024) was named The Quietus’s Album of the Week and the Guardian's Folk Album of the Month, and will form the basis of his debut Barbican set, with music inspired by time, memory and the Polish-Lithuanian borderlands.

More names to be announced at a later date.

Produced by the Barbican
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SUPPORT ACT ANNOUNCED

Billie Marten & Her Ensemble
+ Westerman
Friday 4 October 2024, 8pm 
Barbican Hall 
Tickets from £25 plus booking fee

Singer, songwriter, and musician Billie Marten makes her Barbican debut for a special one-off performance with the pioneering Her Ensemble, in a reimagination of songs from across all four of Marten’s albums.   

Working closely with Marten, Her Ensemble Director Ellie Consta has lovingly reimagined and animated the delicate indie-folk music and intricately crafted songs from across Billie’s discography. The songs (four from each album and some of which that have never been performed live by Marten) will be presented in a completely new way, as Marten and the 24-piece ensemble take to the Barbican Hall in October this year.   

Her Ensemble was formed in 2020 by classically trained violinist Consta, with the aim of positively impacting the gender gap and gender stereotypes in the classical music industry. They are a free-form collective born from the discovery that only a small fraction of classical music pieces performed worldwide are written by women. It is the first group of its kind in the UK made up of predominantly women, non-binary, and gender-minority musicians.

Generously supported by Trevor Fenwick and Jane Hindley.

Support comes from London-born, Athens-based songwriter Westerman, whose albums An Inbuilt Fault [2023, Partisan/PIAS] and Your Hero is Not Dead [2020, PIAS] were released to considerable critical acclaim.

Produced by the Barbican       
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