Press room

The Barbican today announces two new anniversary performances for 2025: the 10th Anniversary celebration of Nils Frahm’s Piano Day, and, marking its 20th anniversary, Jeff Mills’ Blue Potentialproject – joined by the Barbican’s Resident Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra. 

Full details for both new performances, as well as support details for Moin’s Barbican headline performance, follow below.

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Piano Day 2025

Wednesday 2 April 2025, 5pm

Freestage, Level G

Free and un-ticketed 

Next month, Nils Frahm’s Piano Day returns to the Barbican with an afternoon of free performances to mark the 10-year anniversary of the global celebration of the piano. Founded by composer, producer and performer Nils Frahm, Piano Day traditionally takes place on the 88th day of the year – the same number of keys on a piano - with this year’s event hosting a varied line-up of acclaimed artists who have prepared special compositions to celebrate the milestone. For this special 10-year celebration, Level G at the Barbican will be given over to the piano, welcoming piano enthusiasts and contemporary music fans alike for an afternoon of music.

This year’s performers will include pioneering musician and producer Matthew Herbert, who has collaborated with the likes of Björk and John Cale and composed scores for cult films. Herbert returns to the Barbican after his headline performance of The Horse in the Hall in 2023. Other performers will include BAFTA-nominated composer Vince Pope, alt-soul trailblazer Tawiah, Maribou State co-writer Neil Cowley and many others. The performers will also be joined by a string quartet led by violinist Ellie Consta, founder of Her Ensemble. 

Demonstrating the piano’s versatility and ability to transcend genres, the performances will capture a spectrum of emotions and narratives, blending diverse musical styles and influences from classical and neo-classical to ambient, jazz and bold, avant-garde explorations. 

Founded in 2015, Piano Day is an annual worldwide event conceived by composer, producer and celebrated performer Nils Frahm, who is joined each year by a group of likeminded musicians. 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. 

The full list of performers is: Matthew Herbert, Vince Pope, Nick Foster, Sam Thompson, Neil Cowley, Kate Simko, Natalia Tsupryk, Madison Willing, Tessa Rose Jackson, AVAWAVES, Tawiah. To find out more information about each of the artists please click here.

Produced by the Barbican with Manners McDade & Faber Music

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Jeff Mills + London Symphony Orchestra: Blue Potential

Saturday 28 June 2025, 8pm

Barbican Hall

Tickets from £37.50 plus booking fee

Electronic music pioneer Jeff Mills returns to the Barbican, joining forces with the Barbican’s Resident Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra. In a very special evening, Mills and the LSO come together to mark the 20th anniversary of Blue Potential, combining symphonic grandeur with iconic beats in a live real-time performance of some of Mills’ classic tracks, conducted by Christophe Mangou.

Mills was the first DJ to collaborate on, perform, and capture concerts with classical orchestras, and he here revisits his Blue Potential project two decades on. In the title, Blue means the water on planet Earth and its mirror-like reflection of the stars and other worlds above. Potential refers to the probable future of mankind and a calculation that answers to questions we’ve yet to ask lie out into the unknown. Thinking about a concept many years before, this first classical encounter with the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra took place 20 years ago at the magical Pont De Gard in Southern France. That night, over 10,000 people were in attendance to watch what we now realize as one of Electronic Music’s greatest leaps forward. It was a jump that would ignite the long conversation between Electronic and Classical Music that continues in the decades afterwards.

Blue Potential was originally performed with the Montpelier Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005 and released as a live album in 2006 - a groundbreaking moment combining electronic and symphonic music. This time Mills teams up with the 121-year-old London Symphony Orchestra to mark the anniversary. The performance will intertwine Mills' trademark 909 snare and cymbal backbone with the orchestral might of the LSO in a live fusion of beat making and orchestral instrumentation.

From shaping Detroit’s early techno scene to redefining electronic music’s intersection with art, film, and orchestration, Jeff Mills continues to push creative boundaries. A true innovator, he has performed worldwide, collaborating with jazz legends, orchestras, and prestigious art institutions. Mills’ performances are immersive and expansive, blending hypnotic beats, improvisation, and cinematic storytelling.

Produced by the Barbican

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SUPPORT ACTS ANNOUNCED

Moin

+Honour + Voice Actor

Saturday 31 May 2025, 7.30pm

Barbican Hall

Tickets from £22.50 plus booking fee

Moin are a three-piece based in London featuring Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews of the electronic outfit Raime and percussionist visionary Valentina Magaletti.

Their music re-contextualises a range of guitar-based genres from grunge, shoegaze and post-rock in an enigmatic re-configuring of the traditional band, using both conventional and unique compositional techniques alongside a visceral immediacy which translates in full effect during their live performances.

Moin walk the line between what’s reassuringly familiar and what’s unsettling and inquisitive. Their debut headline show for the Barbican will include music from their new album You Never End (AD 93, 2024), guest features and a range of classics from their back catalogue.

Support for the performances comes from producer Honour, whose record Àlááfíà (PAN, 2023) blends hip-hop, R&B, jazz and gospel music to atemporal soundscapes and compositions creating a work that marinates in its own knotty contradictions, and ambient outfit Voice Actor (a.k.a. musical artist Noa Kurzweil) following the release of her latest record Lust (1) (Stroom, 2025), a collaboration with producer Squu, that Pitchfork calls “music of a primitive, delirious, and delightfully exhausted state.”

Produced by the Barbican
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