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Barbican announces Autechre date (7 Oct) and line-up for Piano Day (29 Mar)

artwork for piano day 2022

Piano Day 2022 at the Barbican

Tue 29 Mar 2022, Barbican FreeStage, Level G, 5.30pm

Admission Free

Piano Day returns to the Barbican’s music programme for the fourth time, following its last live iteration in 2019. This year’s line-up includes Poppy Ackroyd, AVAWAVES, Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres, Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, Angus MacRae, Vince Pope, Mara Simpson, Natalia Tsupryk and Oliver Patrice Weder. Performances will take place from 5.30pm on the Barbican FreeStage on Level G and admission is free.

Founded in 2015, Piano Day is an annual worldwide event brought to life by composer, producer and celebrated performer Nils Frahm and a group of likeminded people. Piano Day takes place on the 88th day of the year, celebrating the number of keys on the instrument. The event aims to raise the profile of the piano globally, inspiring more piano players of all ages and abilities as well as promoting piano playing in public spaces.

Nils Frahm said: Why does the world need a Piano Day? For many reasons. But mostly, because it doesn’t hurt to celebrate the piano and everything around it: performers, composers, piano builders, tuners, movers and most important, the listener.

Produced by the Barbican in association with Manners McDade and Leiter

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Autechre

+ Zoviet France

Fri 7 Oct 2022, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm

Tickets £25 – 35 plus booking fee

Cutting-edge English electronic music duo Autechre, featuring Rob Brown and Sean Booth, will come to the Barbican for the first time this October.  

Playing in darkness, this will be the first chance to hear new Autechre material since 2020’s SIGN and PLUS. With roots in 80's electro, their first release in 1991 developed a template for electronic music that stands firm today. Constantly evolving, the duo – so intertwined with the history of Warp Records – have created some of the most groundbreaking music of the last 30 years. With original sounds, intricately programmed funk and a characteristically northern take on conventional rhythm and structure, their style is always fresh and future-facing.

Support comes from Zoviet France – emerging from the experimental industrial scene in the 80s alongside the likes of Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio, this is a rare chance to catch them live.

Produced by the Barbican
On sale to Barbican patrons and members on Wed 9 Mar 2022
On general sale on Fri 11 Mar 2022
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Support acts announced

Keeley Forsyth

+ La Leif 

Fri 11 Mar 2022, Milton Court Concert Hall, 7.30pm

Tickets £17.50 plus booking fee

Keeley Forsyth is a composer, singer and actor from Oldham in the north-west of England. Built upon sparse arrangements, her music is centred around a singular, emotionally raw and magnetic vocal delivery, by turns devastating and uplifting. The character that populates her songs tells of the high and low tides, of freedom and entrapment, of hard-won triumphs and the darker corners of domestic life. Her debut album Debris was released in January 2020 and was written in collaboration with pianist and composer Matthew Bourne. Forsyth’s live performances centre around a dramatic visual interpretation of the music.

Support comes from electronic producer, mixer, engineer, and co-founder of Omnii collective, Francine Perry’s solo project La Leif.

Produced by the Barbican in association with Bird on the Wire

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FIBS: Anna Meredith & London Contemporary Orchestra

Conducted by Robert Ames

+ Carmel Smickersgill

+ Tanya Auclair

Sat 30 Apr 2022, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm
Tickets £20 – 25 plus booking fee
Composer, producer and performer of both acoustic and electronic music, Anna Meredith returns to the Barbican’s music programme this spring, presenting a special live orchestral performance of her Mercury Prize-shortlisted album FIBS (Moshi Moshi, 2019). Anna Meredith (electronics, keyboards, percussion, clarinet, vocals) will be joined on stage by her band: Jack Ross (guitar, vocals), Sam Wilson (drums, vocals), Tom Kelly (tuba, vocals) and Maddie Cutter (cello, vocals), alongside the London Contemporary Orchestra and conductor Robert Ames. 
Bringing together classical, electronic and popular music, the material was arranged for band and orchestra by Ben Corrigan and Robert Ames.

This evening’s support comes from Manchester-based composer and performer Carmel Smickersgill – a nominee for Apple Music’s Rising Star Ivor Novello Award, she is currently under the mentorship of Anna Meredith; and British-Rwandan music and sound artist Tanya Auclair, whose work explores rhythm, voice and electronica, treating everyday life like new mythologies and taking an embodied approach to exploring ideas with sound.

Produced by the Barbican in association with Parallel Lines
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Shards

+ Marina Herlop

Fri 6 May 2022, Milton Court Concert Hall, 7.30pm

Tickets £15 plus booking fee

Vocal group Shards combine close choral arrangement with synths and percussion to explore the remarkable capabilities of the human voice. With compositions built as ‘miniature sonic paintings’ to examine excitement, existentialism, anger and despair, Shards’ work captures the bewildering experiences of young adulthood, led by founder and composer Kieran Brunt. Having debuted at Nils Frahm’s Possibly Colliding marathon weekend at the Barbican in 2016, this delayed-performance comes following subsequent collaborations with Frahm, and the group’s debut album Find Sound.

Support comes from producer, vocalist and pianist Marina Herlop. The

Barcelona-based artist released miu, her latest single and first release with PAN in September 2021. Miu sees Herlop experimenting freely with konnakol syllables and carnatic rhythms harnessing the processed human voice and electronics.

Produced by the Barbican in association with Parallel Lines

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