Press room

Press reminder: Barbican classical music spring and summer season highlights calendar (February - June 2024)

From emerging talent to radical ensembles, world-renowned orchestras, and outstanding soloists, the below calendar details the Barbican’s own-promotion classical music programme from February to June 2024. 

For further information, images or to arrange interviews, contact details for the Barbican music press team can be found at the bottom of this email.

FEBRUARY

• Manchester Collective, soprano Héloïse Werner and mezzo-sopranos Fleur Barron and Katie Bray present the first dramatically-staged performance of composer Freya Waley-Cohen’s beguiling Spell Book – a dramatic song cycle setting spell-poems from Rebecca Tamás’s book WITCH. (1 Feb, Milton Court Concert Hall)

   

• Il Pomo d’Oro return for an evening of Baroque masterpieces as they pair Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Giacomo Carissimi’s Jepthe. Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev leads a star cast of Joyce DiDonato, Andrew Staples, Carlotta Colombo, Fatma Said, Beth Taylor, Hugh Cutting, Massimo Altieri, Alena Dantcheva, Anna Piroli. (2 Feb, Barbican Hall)

• String quartet and ECHO Rising Star ensemble Sonoro Quartet present a programme of new works (including a commission by Annelies van Parys) alongside music by Guillaume Lekeu and Shostakovich’s searing String Quartet No 8. (8 Feb, LSO St Luke’s)
  
   
• Britten Sinfonia are joined by cellist Guy Johnston to perform John Tavener’s modern classic, The Protecting Veil, coinciding with what would have been the composer's 80th birthday year. The programme also includes Bartók’s Divertimento and a string orchestra version of Beethoven’s legendary contrapuntal workout for string quartet, the Grosse Fuge. (15 Feb, Barbican Hall)

• Evgeny Kissin, one of the finest pianists of our age, gives a recital of formidable complexity and range with a programme of Beethoven, Prokofiev, Brahms, and Chopin. (17 Feb, Barbican Hall)

• GRAMMY Award-winning percussion quartet Third Coast Percussion return to the Barbican to present Metamorphosis, joining forces with the groundbreaking choreography of Movement Art Is (Lil Buck and Jon Boogz) performed and interpreted by Trent Jeray and Cameron Murphy to blend street dance with new music by Jlin, Tyondai Braxton and Philip Glass. (22 Feb, Milton Court Concert Hall) 
  
   

MARCH

• Soprano Hera Hyesang Park and pianist Bretton Brown give a recital that celebrates Park’s Korean heritage in a far-reaching recital exploring parallels and contrasts between western repertoire and Korean art and folksong. (1 Mar, Milton Court Concert Hall)

• International piano sensation Khatia Buniatishvili brings both passion and vulnerability to a recital of Beethoven Piano Sonatas No 17 and No 23, Three Movements from Pétrouchka by Stravinsky and arrangements by her musical hero, Liszt. This programme features Liszt’s transcriptions of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A minor and several Schubert songs, as well as his own imposing Hungarian Rhapsody No 6. (21 Mar, Barbican Hall)

• Bringing his Artist Spotlight residency to a close, cellist Abel Selaocoe presents Chesaba: a trio devoted to the multilayered textures of South African music who will be joined by BCUC (Bantu Continua Uhuru Consciousness) – fresh from winning the WOMEX Artist Award 2023 – for an evening of kaleidoscopic Sowetan sounds. (26 Mar, Barbican Hall)
  
   
• The Barbican and BBC Symphony Orchestra bring Armando Iannucci’sbiting comedy satire The Death of Stalin (2017) in concert to the Hall in March. This unique and cinematic evening will present a screening with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, who will be playing Christopher Willis' score in synchronisation with the film for the first time, conducted by Matt Dunkley.  The live screening will be followed by a Q&A featuring director Armando Iannucci, composer Christopher Willis, producer Kevin Loader  and members of the principal cast. (27 March, Barbican Hall)

• Basson player and ECHO Rising Star Mathis Stier is joined by pianist Rie Akamatsu, to takes us from the 18th century through to the present day in a recital including a new work and ECHO-commission by Maria Sigfúsdóttir. (29 Mar, LSO St Luke’s).

APRIL

• Scottish guitarist and lutanist Sean Shibe and the Dunedin Consort, Scotland’s foremost Baroque ensemble, join forces to present Reformations: Concerto, a feast of early and recent repertoire including the world premiere of a new concerto by Canadian composer Cassandra Miller. The concert marks the first instalment of a major three-year commissioning project in partnership with the Barbican. (11 Apr, Milton Court Concert Hall) 
  
   
• Internationally acclaimed singers Allan Clayton, Alice Zawadski & Héloïse Werner are joined by pianist Kit Downes and cellist Colin Alexander in a semi-improvised and specially devised programme of new works by each of the five artists for this Barbican performance. (17 Apr, Milton Court Concert Hall)

• Anthony McGill and Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective is the first of two concerts with the collective that will see them perform two deeply personal works of chamber music: Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet and Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) - Part of Anthony McGill Milton Court Artist-in-Residence. (23 Apr, Milton Court Concert Hall)
  
   
• Canadian-American saxophonist Colin Stetson, in his Barbican Hall debut, joins forces with the London Contemporary Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames for a special performance of live selections from his acclaimed soundtrack to the A24 horror masterpiece, Hereditary, marking the world premiere of the performance. (25 Apr, Barbican Hall) 

• Anthony McGill: Gran Partita concludes McGill’s residency with an iconic, soaring work for paired wind instruments: Mozart’s Gran Partita. Now a mainstay of the Milton Court Artist-in-Residence programmes, this will be a side-by-side performance with McGill joined on stage by musicians from Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Preceding the Gran Partita, McGill will be joined again by Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective to perform Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Clarinet Quintet – a piece that Coleridge-Taylor was challenged to write without being influenced by Brahms’ quintet, succeeding with a work bursting with invention. Part of Anthony McGill Milton Court Artist-in-Residence. (26 Apr, Milton Court Concert Hall)

• Leonidas Kavakos hosts a masterclass, open to the public, for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama’s most talented violinists at Milton Court Concert Hall. (30 Apr, Milton Court Concert Hall)

   

MAY

• Internationally celebrated violinist Leonidas Kavakos performs the entirety of J. S. Bach’s Six Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas over two nights in a display of precision, technique, and sublime musical mastery. (2 & 3 May)
  
   
• In a double-bill at Milton Court Concert Hall, South London-based singer, songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Lucinda Chua performs music from her debut album YIAN and her new EP Reclaiming The Rose and Kazakh composer, producer & violinist Galya Bisengalieva performs her latest album Polygon. Both artists will be joined on stage by the London Contemporary Orchestra. (2 May, Milton Court Concert Hall)

• Soprano Fatma Said is joined by pianist Joseph Middleton for a recital of music of day and of night, counterpointing nocturnal pieces by Mozart, Schubert, and Robert Schumann with sun-evoking Spanish music by De Falla, Obradors, and Serrano, tied together with Lebanese composer Najib Hankash’s Aeteni al Naya Wa ghanni (Give me the flute and sing). (22 May, Milton Court Concert Hall) Said will also host a public masterclass with Guildhall School of Music and Drama musicians at Milton Court. (23 May, Milton Court Concert Hall)

• Cellist and pianist siblings Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason return to the Barbican Hall stage for a programme of cello sonatas by Felix Mendelssohn, Fauré, Chopin and Beethoven. (28 May, Barbican Hall)

JUNE

• With superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel at the helm, the Los Angeles Philharmonic return to the Barbican for two concerts. On Sunday 2 June, the LA Phil present a programme of John Williams’ Olympic Fanfare, the UK premiere of Gabriela Ortiz’ Violin Concerto Altar de cuerda performed by violinist María Dueñas, and Anton Dvorak’s iconic Symphony No. 9 From the New World. (2 Jun, Barbican Hall) 
  
   
• The Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel are joined for their second concert by Deaf West Theatre and the White Hands Choir of El Sistema Venezuela to perform Beethoven’s opera Fidelio. The Deaf actors will perform centre-stage in this production, drawing on both the expressive power of sign language and Beethoven’s music. The chorus for this performance will be comprised of Barcelona’s Cor Del Gran Teatre del Liceu and Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Musica. (3 Jun, Barbican Hall)

• Belgian ensemble Collegium Vocale Gent and its founder and conductor Philippe Herreweghe return to the Barbican for the first time since 2019 to perform J. S. Bach’s B Minor Mass. Completed in the last years of Bach’s life, this all-encompassing piece is regarded as one of the greatest classical works of all time. Collegium Vocale Gent will be joined by sopranos Dorothee Mields and Hana Blažíková, countertenor Alex Potter, tenor Guy Cutting and baritone Johannes Kammler. (14 Jun, Barbican Hall) 

• Legendary sibling pianists Katia and Marielle Labéque present their instrumental suites of Philip Glass’ operas: Orphée, La Belle et la Bête, and Les Enfants Terribles for two pianos. This special staging will be heightened with lighting and stage design by Artistic Director Cyril Teste and stage designer Nina Chalot in the form of an elegant chandelier suspended above the pianists, creating an intimate atmosphere for the audience, and opening limitless creative possibilities for stage design. Produced by Philharmonie de Paris in this co-production with the Barbican National Concert Hall - Dublin, Cité Musicale – Metz and Opéra national de Bordeaux. (17 Jun, Barbican Hall)

   

Full event listings for the season, including concerts by Barbican Resident Orchestra the London Symphony Orchestra, and associate orchestra and ensembles the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia and Academy of Ancient Music can be found here on the Barbican website.