Press room

Balimaya Project x Discos Pacífico All Stars
Saturday 27 September 2025, 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Tickets from £20 plus booking fee

Following their show at Milton Court in 2021 and their Barbican Hall debut in 2023, Balimaya Project returns with a bold new collaboration alongside Colombia’s Discos Pacífico All Stars. Together, they present a cross-continental performance fusing West African jazz and Afro-Colombian tradition in a boundary-pushing exchange of rhythm, heritage, and sound.

Facilitated by UK jazz tastemakers Jazz re:freshed and the prolific Colombia-based label Llorona Records, Balimaya Project and Discos Pacífico All Stars bring together over 15 musicians connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts exploring experimental Afro-diasporic soundscapes. Blending Mandé jazz with Afro-Colombian folkloric music, the collaboration explores the deep rhythmic and cultural ties between African and Latin American traditions.

Balimaya Project, known for their powerful fusion of Mandé rhythms and contemporary jazz, brings a strong foundation in West African musical heritage, incorporating instruments like the djembe and balafon to craft complex, emotive compositions rooted in community and storytelling. 

Joining them from Colombia’s Pacific coast, the Discos Pacífico All Stars—featuring members of Bejuco, Semblanzas del Rio Guapi, and former members of Agrupación Changó—focus on marimba music and Afro-Colombian rhythms, channelling the energy of their ancestral sound into something fresh and globally resonant.

This performance will centre on an international exchange, shaping a new musical narrative in real time. Together, the artists will bridge continents and generations—drawing on deep-rooted traditions while forging new sounds through collaboration, composition, and live experimentation.

Balimaya Project Meets the Discos Pacífico All Stars is funded by the British Council’s International Collaboration Grants with the support of Jazz re:freshed, Llorona Records/Discos Pacífico and the Barbican.

Produced by the Barbican 
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Generously supported by Trevor Fenwick and Jane Hindley

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Hania Rani - Non Fiction: A Piano Concerto in Four Movements
Tuesday 25 & Wednesday 26 November 2025
Barbican Hall, 7.30pm
Tickets from £30 plus booking fee

Multi-award-winning composer and pianist Hania Rani returns to the Barbican this autumn for the world premiere performance of her first piano concerto and symphonic work: Non Fiction: A Piano Concerto in Four Movements. Joined by Manchester Collective, assembled as a 45-piece orchestra with violinist Rakhi Singh, conductor Hugh Brunt and special guests Jack Wyllie and Valentina Magaletti, Rani returns following her sold out Barbican debut earlier this month where she performed her 2024 album Ghosts. 

Rani’s new work is composed in response to the discovery in 2020 of the compositions of a young music prodigy, Josima Feldschuh, written in the Warsaw Ghetto during the horrors of World War II. Moved by the young girl’s story, Rani chooses to examine it through the lens of current horrors in both Ukraine and Gaza, and how we observe them through modern media. In doing so, Rani investigates the constant coexistence of harmony and disorder, creating a sonic metaphor for the survival of the human spirit when faced with violence. 

With Rani drawing on her classical background, uniquely contemporary music and improvisation, audiences can expect a profound and powerful display of a modern masterwork. In the opening set, audiences can also expect a selection of Rani’s contemporary instrumental music for film and theatre alongside new music arranged for a small ensemble.

Produced by the Barbican
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SUPPORT ACT ANNOUNCED

Actress x Suzanne Ciani present Concrète Waves
+ Natural Wonder Beauty Concept
Friday 30 May 2025, 7.30pm
Barbican Hall
Tickets from £20 plus booking fee
 

The Barbican announces Concrète Waves, a new and groundbreaking live music collaboration between two titans of avant-garde electronic music, Actress and Suzanne Ciani.

Where Actress and Ciani’s work undoubtedly entwines is through total singularity in their respective sounds. Across their careers, each have displayed an unrelenting desire to create unique musical environments and forms around their projects. At the Barbican in 2025, this entwining results in a brand-new boundary-pushing performance that will creatively challenge the dense conceptual framework of two of the most distinctive and inventive talents in electronic music – presented in the Barbican Hall in quadrophonic sound.

By harnessing the power of their similarities and differences, Actress and Ciani will come together in a never seen before collaboration, juxtaposing the natural and industrial worlds and creating a space for sonic play. Bringing together elements of both artists’ work, this new collaboration will be underpinned by the unconventional rhythmic framework of Actress’ industrial practice ‘R&B’ Concrète via Ciani’s natural expressions on the Buchla.

Support comes from Natural Wonder Beauty Concept, a collaboration between ambient artist Ana Roxanne and reggaetón innovator DJ Python. Their self-titled debut album, released in 2023, showcases a unique blend of ambient textures, experimental rhythms, and ethereal vocals, creating a sound that is both introspective and expansive.

Produced by the Barbican. Co-commissioned by the Barbican and Sònar.
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