Touching on themes of countercultures, subcultures and minorities of all kinds, the show features the work of 20 photographers from the 1950s to the present day.
The full-line up has just been announced for Sound Unbound, the Barbican Classical Weekender, which returns on 29-30 April 2017, following a hugely successful first outing in 2015. The festival gives audiences the chance to explore new sounds and rediscover familiar ones, from medieval to modern, in a relaxed festival environment, performed by artists for whom the boundaries between classical music and contemporary, experimental and pop music have been blurred – or simply don’t exist.
Scottish singer, songwriter and lyricist, Steve Mason presents a unique look back at his sprawling musical career, spanning The Beta Band, King Biscuit Time and his subsequent solo work, performing specially-commissioned new arrangements by composer, arranger and conductor Joe Duddell.
Across his extensive musical output, one constant with Steve Mason’s work is that he has always sought to push the boundaries of what you can do within the pop song structure. Where many of the Beta Band’s contemporaries seemed happy to settle into the tropes of Britpop, Mason was more interested in experimenting with elements of Electronic Music, Folk and Psychedelia, crafting songs that were as subversive as they were anthemic.
More than just a simple retrospective of his music, these new arrangements draw out the depth in his songwriting, with Mason’s full band featuring Steve Duffield (bass), Elliot King (guitar), Darren Morris (keyboards) and Greg Neilson (drums) complemented by strings, harp, brass, percussion and even gospel vocalists, conducted by Joe Duddell.
Daniil Trifonov plays Schumann, Shostakovich and Stravinsky: a rare London solo recital from the most talked-about pianist of his generation.
Trifonov is still only in his mid-20s, but critics are already running out of words to describe his playing: ’He is, no other word, a phenomenon‘, declared The Observer. This solo recital places him firmly in the Russian virtuoso tradition.
Stravinsky’s Three Pieces from Petrushka and Schumann’s Kreisleriana are both touchstones of master-pianism. But what adds another dimension to this recital is Trifonov’s choice of Schumann’s Kinderszenen and Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues: music to stretch mind and soul, as well as the fingers. As that same critic put it in October 2015, ’Trifonov’s playing has it all‘.
Opera through the looking glass: Lewis Carroll meets classical music’s funniest living composer in Gerald Barry’s uproarious new opera.
The surreal imagination of Carroll collides with the off-the-wall humour of the composer in what’ll surely be the most entertaining operatic premiere of the year. Nothing’s as it seems: apart from a knockout cast conducted by Thomas Adès.
The inimitable Barbara Hannigan sings the role of Alice – and if you saw her in Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest, you definitely won’t want to miss her in this: Barry’s described it as ’the next logical step‘. The Daily Telegraph, meanwhile, described Barry’s last opera as ’completely bonkers‘ – which is probably nearer the mark. Only a Mad Hatter would miss Alice.
Brazilian-born, Cologne-bred and Berlin-based singer-songwriter and pianist Dominique Dillon de Byington, aka Dillon, makes her Barbican programme debut at LSO St Luke’s this autumn. The artist, who bridges pop, art song and electronica, presents material from her latest choral project (and forthcoming release of the same title) This Silence Kills The Unknown for which she will be joined by Hackney-based amateur women’s choir Deep Throat Choir.
Dillon released her debut album This Silence Kills in 2011, followed by her second album The Unknown in 2014 on German electronic music label BPitch Control to great critical acclaim. The two albums are linked and tell a coherent story, which continues with her recently released third album This Silence Kills The Unknown, a live album of a theatrical concert with a 16-strong women’s choir that Dillon had devised for the Berlin Festival’s Foreign Affairs strand in summer 2015. Dillon said: ‘This Silence Kills and The Unknown have always been one to me and the new album physically brings them together in a way that, until now, has only been possible live.’
Part of Reich, Glass, Adams: The Sounds That Changed America
Sat 5-Sun 6 Nov 2016, Milton Court Concert Hall, Barbican Hall
In the 2016-17 season, the Barbican and its resident and associate orchestras celebrate the birthdays of three composers who have changed the face of American music: Steve Reich and Philip Glass who both turn 80 this season, and John Adams who turns 70.
A weekend of Steve Reich’s music kicks off the series on 5 November. That evening, Britten Sinfonia, conducted by Clark Rundell, performs a special birthday concert inspired by Reich’s engagement with world events. The programme includes Different Trains; the prescient Three Tales (Hindenburg, Bikini and Dolly), Reich's collaboration with video-artist Beryl Korot, which examines the themes of air travel, nuclear testing and genetic engineering; the European premiere of Pulse, also a Barbican co-commission; and a programme entitled Electric Reich featuring New York based electric guitar ensemble Dither playing Electric Counterpoint arranged for 13 electric guitars and the ground-breaking Pendulum Music.
Earlier in the day, Guildhall School Musicians perform Reich’s City Life, and his minimalist masterpiece Drumming, after receiving coaching from the composer. Sunday begins with an LSO Discovery Day on Steve Reich and concludes with a concert where the LSO, conducted by Kristjan Järvi, performs Reich’s You Are (Variations), Daniel Variations and The Desert Music. As part of the birthday celebration, filmmaker and video artist Tal Rosner has a created a two-channel video installation in response to Steve Reich's 1981 work Tehillim (the original Hebrew word for "Psalms").
Potent, provocative and sometimes shocking, the word vulgar conjures up strong images, ideas and feelings in us all. The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined is the first exhibition to consider this inherently challenging but utterly compelling territory of taste. It both questions notions of vulgarity in fashion while revelling in its excesses, inviting the visitor to think again about exactly what makes something vulgar and why it is such a sensitive and contested term.
Drawn from major public and private collections worldwide, with contributions from leading modern and contemporary designers such as Walter van Beirendonck, Manolo Blahnik, Chloé, André Courrèges, Christian Dior, Erdem, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rudi Gernreich, Nicolas Ghesquiére, Madame Grès, Pam Hogg, Marc Jacobs, Charles James, Stephen Jones, Christian Lacroix, Karl Lagerfeld, Jeanne Lanvin, Malcolm McLaren, Maison Margiela, Miu Miu, Moschino, Paul Poiret, Miuccia Prada, Zandra Rhodes, Jeremy Scott, Elsa Schiaparelli, Raf Simmons, Jun Takahashi, Philip Treacy, UNDERCOVER, Viktor & Rolf, Louis Vuitton, Vivienne Westwood and Marco Zanini. The Vulgar opens at Barbican Art Gallery on 13 October 2016.
Conceived by exhibition-maker Judith Clark and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips, the exhibition takes fascinating literary definitions of ‘the vulgar’ as a starting point and includes a wealth of over 120 stunning exhibits from the Renaissance through to the 21st century. Weaving together historic dress, couture and ready-to-wear fashion, textile ornamentation, manuscripts, photography and film, this carefully crafted installation illustrates how taste is a mobile concept: what was once associated with vulgarity is reconjured by designers to become the height of fashion. Encompassing a 500 year timeframe, The Vulgar showcases historic works alongside a roll call of contemporary fashion. The exhibition demonstrates how fashion through the ages actively breaks with and revises taste to create new expressions of style, often celebrating, courting or exploiting so-called vulgarity and its possible pleasures.
