The Barbican’s music programme returns in autumn 2021 with full capacity live audiences and with some of the concerts also available as livestreams. We’re looking forward to welcoming back superstar soloists and emerging artists, Barbican Resident Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and our family of associate orchestras and ensembles as well as autumn regulars such as the EFG London Jazz and Darbar festivals.
Huw Humphreys, Barbican’s Head of Music says: “Following the challenges over the last 18 months during which live music came to a complete halt at times, we are delighted that we can today announce a great new concert season for autumn 2021 when the Barbican Hall re-opens its doors to full capacity audiences. The programme will see world-renowned artists such as Joyce DiDonato, Davóne Tines, Lang Lang, Nicola Benedetti, Khatia Buniatishvili and Archie Shepp return to the Barbican, and others, including Jamie Barton, Ryan Bancroft and Samantha Ege making their Barbican debuts. We are also pleased to welcome back international ensembles, such as Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Wynton Marsalis, in a special concert celebrating Wynton’s 60th birthday, and L’Arpeggiata directed by Christina Pluhar performing Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers. And of course we are delighted that there will be fantastic projects and collaborations featuring our great family of orchestras and ensembles including our resident London Symphony Orchestra who will give 18 concerts this autumn, with Sir Simon Rattle conducting throughout September and December; our associate BBC Symphony Orchestra giving the world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s multimedia tribute to his beloved Arsenal with Up for Grabs; our associates Academy of Ancient Music performing Haydn’s The Creation with new Music Director Laurence Cummings and Britten Sinfonia presenting Sebastião Salgado: Amazônia in concert. EFG London Jazz Festival from our associate producer Serious returns and we will again host Darbar Festival of Indian Classical Music. We will also continue to bring some of the concerts to a wider, global audience, through our livestreams, including Clark and the London Contemporary Orchestra performing orchestral versions of Playground In A Lake and Speakers Corner Quartet bringing their unique blend of jazz and electronics in a new project.”
The Barbican’s music programme in September – December 2021 includes:
ORCHESTRAL HIGHLIGHTS
Music Director Sir Simon Rattle opens the Barbican Resident London Symphony Orchestra’s season with an all-British programme featuring a new choral work by Julian Anderson and music by Judith Weir, Vaughan Williams and Maxwell Davies (12 Sep, Barbican Hall). Sir Simon Rattle will also conduct all of the LSO’s Barbican concerts in Sep and Dec 2021.
Barbican Associate Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo perform the UK premiere of Betsy Jolas’s Letters from Bachville, Brahms’s Symphony No 2, and Ruth Gipps’s Horn Concerto with soloist Ben Goldscheider (2 Oct, Barbican Hall, also livestreamed). The orchestra will be joined by children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson reading from her hugely popular books in a multimedia orchestral adventure for families (23 Oct).
Up for Grabs - Life-long Arsenal fan Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new composition sets video footage of Arsenal’s 1989 title-winning match vs Liverpool to a new symphonic score. Ryan Bancroft conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in this world premiere, and Turnage joins Arsenal legend Lee Dixon and other players from that night to discuss the match and its cultural impact (5 Nov, also livestreamed).
Saxophonist Soweto Kinch joins the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival presenting an LSO commissioned piece written by Kinch as a response to Black Lives Matter and the history of the Black community in London (19 Nov, also livestreamed).
Barbican Associate Ensemble Academy of Ancient Music performs Haydn’s The Creation in Laurence Cummings’ inaugural concert as Music Director of AAM, featuring stunning digital effects by Nina Dunn (28 Sep, Barbican Hall, also livestreamed).
In Sebastião Salgado: Amazônia in concert, Simone Menezes conducts Barbican Associate Ensemble Britten Sinfonia in music by Philip Glass and Heitor Villa-Lobos with projections of Sebastião Salgado’s evocative, thought-provoking photography, introduced by the celebrated photographer himself (14 Oct, Barbican Hall).
Trumpeter Alison Balsom joins the orchestra in a concert exploring the enduring musical influence of the American Jazz Age (18 Nov, Milton Court).
RECITALS
GRAMMY award-winning violinist Nicola Benedetti opens the recital series with unaccompanied music for violin, featuring works by Bach, Ysaÿe and Wynton Marsalis (23 Sep, Barbican Hall).
Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato returns to the Barbican with In My Solitude – an intimate recital with pianist Craig Terry exploring themes of solitude and love (26 Oct, Barbican Hall).
Acclaimed musicologist-pianist Samantha Ege presents Fantasie Nègre, a recital celebrating the work of three extraordinary female composers of the 20th century: Florence Price, Margaret Bonds and Vítězslava Kaprálová (24 Nov, Milton Court).
Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton makes her Barbican recital debut alongside pianist and composer Jake Heggie featuring songs by Schubert, Brahms, Florence Price and Jake Heggie himself (5 Dec, Barbican Hall).
Tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Jonathan Biss perform the original twenty-song version of Robert Schumann’s song cycle: Dichterliebe (29 Nov, Milton Court).
Global superstar pianist Lang Lang plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations (10 Dec), and piano virtuoso Khatia Buniatishvili presents music by Bach, Liszt, Brahms, Chopin and Prokofiev (20 Oct) in the Barbican Hall; and Barbican ECHO Rising Stars nominee, horn player Ben Goldscheider performs a new work by Mark Simpson, and Jane Vignery’s Horn Sonata (24 Sep, LSO St Luke’s).
SPECIAL PROJECTS & RESIDENCIES
Bass-baritone Davóne Tines arrives at the Barbican in October for a short residency that includes:
a concert with the BBC Symphony Orchestra (7 Oct), featuring Tines’ creation Concerto No. 1: SERMON about which he says: “The meaning this sermon illustrates is an interrogation of why marginalized peoples, namely black people, are made to continually prove their humanity, and asks audiences to evaluate their own connection to this persistent ethical dilemma.”;
a recital at Milton Court, entitled Recital No.1: MASS (12 Oct);
a public conversation with Guildhall School musicians (8 Oct).
Shostakovich: Life, Letters and Friendship presented by Carducci Quartet (9 Nov, Milton Court).
Cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras performing all six of Bach’s solo cello suites, each paired with responses from contemporary composers across three concerts in one afternoon (14 Nov, Milton Court).
The newly launched James McVinnie Ensemble presents a programme featuring Philip Glass’s Glassworks and Music in 5ths as well as a selection from Chris P. Thompson’s True Stories & Rational Numbers (23 Nov, Barbican Hall, also livestreamed).
INTERNATIONAL ENSEMBLES
Barbican International Associate Ensemble Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis celebrate Wynton at 60 (26 Sep, Barbican Hall).
Christina Pluhar leads European group L’Arpeggiata in Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers (14 Dec, Barbican Hall, also livestreamed).
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC HIGHLIGHTS
Balimaya Project + Colectiva – a double bill of Jazz, West African and Latin music (2 Oct, Milton Court).
Clark and the London Contemporary Orchestra perform orchestral versions of Playground In A Lake (16 Oct, Barbican Hall, also livestreamed).
Blending jazz and electronics, Speakers Corner Quartet featuring Kwake Bass present their new project Further Out Than The Edge alongside very special guests (19 Oct, Barbican Hall, also livestreamed).
Electronic/techno producer, musician and visual artist Christian Löffler makes his Barbican debut with a new immersive A/V performance (6 Nov, Barbican Hall).
East London producer, pianist and bandleader Alfa Mist presents new material from his fourth solo album Bring Backs.(4 Dec, Barbican Hall).
FESTIVALS
Darbar Festival of Indian classical music, showcasing one of the oldest continual musical traditions in the world that dates back thousands of years (21 – 24 Oct) featuring: Ken Zuckerman with Surdarshan Chana + Jyotsna Srikanth with Sanju Sahai & RN Prakash (21 Oct), Sukhvinder Singh with Milind Kulkarni + Roopa Panesar with Shahbaz Hussain (22 Oct), Yogabliss to Live Music (23 & 24 Oct), Ustad Waseem Ahmed Khan with Gurdain Rayatt & Milind Kulkarni (23 Oct), Kaushiki Chakraborty with Shahbaz Hussain & Milind Kulkarni + Pandit Kushal Das with Sukhvinder Singh (24 Oct).
EFG London Jazz Festival (12 – 21 Nov) featuring: Archie Shepp & Jason Moran (12 Nov), Aynur (14 Nov), Marcel Khalifé & Bachar Mar-Khalifé (15 Nov), Avishai Cohen + Nikki Yeoh (16 Nov), LSO/Soweto Kinch (19 Nov, also livestreamed), Charles Lloyd (20 Nov) and Brad Mehldau (21 Nov).
Raymond Gubbay Christmas Festival (18 Dec 2021 – 1 Jan 2022) including: Christmas Carol Singalong (18 Dec), Carols By Candlelight (19 Dec), King’s College Choir (21 Dec), Grand Christmas Classics With Alan Titchmarsh (22 Dec), Jingle Bell Christmas (23 Dec), The Music Of Zimmer Vs Williams (27 Dec), Beethoven’s Ninth (28 Dec), The Greatest Showtunes (29 Dec), The Best Of John Williams (30 Dec), New Year’s Eve Gala (31 Dec), New Year’s Day Prom (1 Jan).
OVERVIEW OF LIVESTREAMED CONCERTS
Academy of Ancient Music: Haydn’s The Creation (Tue 28 Sep, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm).
Sakari Oramo conducts Brahms, Jolas and Gipps (Sat 2 Oct, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm).
Clark and the London Contemporary Orchestra (Sat 16 Oct, Barbican Hall, 8pm).
Speakers Corner Quartet presents Further Out Than The Edge (Tue 19 Oct, Barbican Hall, 8pm).
Mark-Anthony Turnage: Up for Grabs (Fri 5 Nov, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm).
London Symphony Orchestra/Soweto Kinch: The Black Peril (Fri 19 Nov, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm).
James McVinnie Ensemble: Glassworks (Tue 23 Nov 2021, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm).
L’Arpeggiata/Pluhar: Monteverdi’s Vespers (Tue 14 Dec, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm).
