Barbican Presents

Wed 23 Oct 2019

Steve Reich and Gerhard Richter – two giants of contemporary culture – come together in a major new collaboration: a cinematic exploration of Richter’s intense, abstract painting 946-3.

Tue 22 Oct 2019, 19:30

Scandinavia’s super-orchestra bring their silken strings and luminous woodwind to bear on Strauss and Shostakovich, before joining forces with another giant of Norwegian music, Leif Ove Andsnes.

Mon 21 Oct 2019, 19:30

All human life is here: Samuel Adamson’s theatrical celebration of Baroque music brings to life the sights, sounds and stories of 17th-century London through the eyes of a court trumpeter.

Mon 14 Oct 2019, 19:30

Few living composers communicate with the emotional directness of James MacMillan, and the opportunity to hear two substantial new works in one concert is genuinely rare.

Sat 5 Oct 2019, 19:30

Richard Tognetti sweeps the Australian Chamber Orchestra from inter-war England to the dark heart of the Viennese psyche.

Fri 4 Oct 2019, 19:30

Photographer Bill Henson’s dramatic night-time landscapes and moody explorations of sensuality form the backdrop to a meditative soundscape of music in this arresting multi-sensory journey.

Thu 3 Oct 2019, 19:30

There are as many ways to unlock the miracles of Bach’s Goldberg Variations as there are performers – and when those performers are Tognetti and the ACO, the possibilities grow exponentially.

Sat 21 Sep 2019, 20:00

Hard-grooving ensemble Third Coast Percussion perform new works by two musical visionaries – iconic minimalist composer Philip Glass, and pop polymath Devonté Hynes (Blood Orange).

Travel from rural Finland to bustling Manhattan and find the threads between J S Bach and Philip Glass as Pekka Kuusisto and Nico Muhly share their limitless musical world.

Jonas Kaufmann, universally celebrated as ‘the world’s greatest tenor’ (Telegraph), joins his old friend Sir Antonio Pappano for an evening of song. 

Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil go to Hell and back in the first UK concert performance of Thomas Adès’s astonishing Dante – a fire-and-brimstone ballet music trilogy based on Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel put an unmistakably French polish on the baroque grandeur of Handel’s coronation anthems, including the spine-tingling ceremonial Zadok the Priest.

Thomas Adès’s 2004 opera recreates Shakespeare’s enchanted isle on his own, utterly magical terms in what the New York Times called ‘one of the most inspired, audacious and personal operas in years.’

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Music Director Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla has announced she is expecting her second child in August 2020 and will therefore no longer be able to conduct this concert.

A vision of eternity, as violinist Pekka Kuusisto and three friends explore the ecstatic musical universe of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time.

Time becomes space, as the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir bring J S Bach and Arvo Pärt into spiritual and emotional communion.

Hear a concert from the one-of-a-kind violin virtuoso who possesses ‘the most personal sound of any violinist now alive’ (Telegraph).

Joyce DiDonato’s ‘Favourite Things’ – operatic arias from the 17th and 18th centuries – are brought spectacularly to life by a true vocal superstar.

Evgeny Kissin reaffirms his credentials as one of the greatest pianists of our time in a programme that contrasts Chopin’s romantic miniatures with three very different 20th-century masters.

Our concert featuring Sheku & Isata Kanneh-Mason will now be going ahead on Sun 4 Jul with some minor programme alterations.