Press room

LINE-UP / RUNNING ORDER ANNOUNCED

London Contemporary Orchestra: 24

Sat 15 – Sun 16 Jan 2022, Barbican Hall, 6pm – 6pm

Tickets £15 – 20 plus booking fee
Long-term Barbican collaborators, the endlessly inventive London Contemporary Orchestra and conductor Robert Ames perform one of their biggest live undertakings to date: an ambitious, continuous 24-hour concert, which promises to be an ambient and meditative experience for the audience. The programme features iconic durational works such as Morton Feldman’s six-hour piece String Quartet No 2 as well as works by John Cage, Éliane Radigue, Mica Levi, Alvin Lucier, Michael Gordon, James Tenney and Galya Bisengalieva. Plus, new pieces performed by electronic musicians Actress, Powell and KMRU. The music will be interspersed by visuals from projection artist László Zsolt Bordos. Ticket holders will be able to come and go as they please during the 24-hour period and stay for 1, 2…or 24 hours!  Please see below for a list of repertoire and the schedule. 
Formed in 2008, London Contemporary Orchestra is a leading global orchestral group focused on playing, commissioning, and developing new music and artistic output. Alongside working with well-known artists, LCO focus on developing a diverse next generation of players, conductors, and composers by creating opportunities for them to work at the highest professional level.

Produced by the Barbican in association with LCO

With support from Arts Council England

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Performers

London Contemporary Orchestra

Robert Ames conductor, viola

Actress electronics

Powell electronics

KMRU electronics

Repertoire / Schedule

Saturday
6pm Michael Gordon Rushes
7pm KMRU x LCO
10pm James Tenny Having Never Written a Note for Percussion
11pm Galya Bisengalieva Saǧat
Sunday
12am Morton Feldman String Quartet No. 2
6am Éliane Radigue Trilogie de la Mort
9am Alvin Lucier I Am Sitting In A Room
10am Powell x LCO
1pm John Cage Eight
2pm Actress x LCO
5pm Mica Levi Thoughts Are Born

 

SUPPORT ARTISTS ANNOUNCED  

Klein
+ Lioness

+ SPEW

Sun 30 Jan 2022, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm

Tickets £12.50 – 15 plus booking fee

Avant-garde British composer and multi-disciplinary artist Klein will bring a new thrilling, inimitable live show to the Barbican this January. Working at the intersection of composed music, theatre and song, this South London artist defies categorisation.

Her new album Harmattan, released on the renowned classical label Pentatone in November 2021, expands our notions of what classical music means today. Live, these explorations are taken further. Her impulse to playfully experiment and push boundaries arrive centre stage, inviting audiences into Klein’s unique sound universe.

Klein returns to the Barbican’s music programme following her opening set for Moor Mother at Milton Court Concert Hall in October 2019.

Birmingham artist / producer Tony Bontana aka SPEW opens the night, followed by a second support set from Grime MC Izabelle ‘Lioness’ Fender which then merges into Klein’s performance.

Produced by the Barbican in association with Rockfeedback

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Novo Amor

+ Jemima Coulter

Mon 23 May 2022, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm (rescheduled from 29 Apr 2021)

Tickets £20 – 25 plus booking fee

Welsh multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, producer and sound designer Novo Amor will make his Barbican debut in spring 2022. Performing with his full band, he will present material from his 2018 debut album Birthplace, 2020 album Cannot Be, Whatsoever (AllPoints) as well as music from his earlier catalogue.

Novo Amor is Ali Lacey. He lives in Cardiff, in a house that’s part-home, part-studio, a place where the distant chatter of a party across the street, Bonfire Night fireworks and the seagulls that congregate on the building site next door bleed into his recordings.

He began Novo Amor as a project of sorts – an act of defiance in the wake of a break-up, but along the way, quite unexpectedly, he found something rich and rewarding. Years ago, a summer spent by an evergreen-surrounded lake in upstate New York supplied both the impetus and imagery that he would use to craft his debut album Birthplace.

As he prepared to release Cannot Be, Whatsoever, Lacey contemplated a past sound tracked by songs of quiet hope and longing. “I can still see the lake upstate when I picture ‘Birthplace’, the songs sheltered by this place I’ve romanticised that doesn’t actually exist anymore. These new songs feel immediate and noisy in comparison, almost optimistic. If ‘Birthplace’ is the countryside, then ‘Cannot Be, Whatsoever’ is the city.”

This evening’s support comes from vocalist and songwriter Jemima Coulter.

Produced by the Barbican in association with Communion

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ALSO COMING UP IN JANUARY 2022

DakhaBrakha

Thu 20 Jan 2022, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm

Tickets £17.50 – 22.50 plus booking fee

Ukrainian quartet DakhaBrakha (meaning ‘give/take’) will present songs and new material from their latest album, 2020’s Alambari, as well as a cross-section of their back catalogue to Barbican audiences in January 2022.

Founded in 2004, the self-proclaimed ‘ethnic chaos’ band are known for mixing Ukrainian and other Eastern European folk music with traditional sounds from across the world and taking influences from Western pop and rock music.

Featuring traditional instruments such as accordion, bass and cello, the quartet are also using Indian, Arabic, African, Russian and Australian folk instrumentation alongside vocal melodies and harmonies and overtone singing.

DakhaBrakha are musicians Marko Halanevych (vocals, darbuka, tabla, accordion, trombone), Iryna Kovalenko (vocals, djembe, bass drums, accordion, percussion, bugay, zgaleyka, piano), Olena Tsybulska (vocals, bass drums, percussion, garmoshka), Nina Garenetska (vocals, cello, bass drum) and director and founder Vladyslav Troitskyi.

Produced by the Barbican

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