Autumn 2014 at London's Barbican Centre

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Classical Music: Joyce DiDonato & Mariinsky Opera

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Classical Music: Joyce DiDonato & Mariinsky Opera
Nils Frahm
Constructing Worlds
Constructing Worlds
Dmitry Krymov Lab, A Midsummer Night's Dream (As You Like It)
Tryo Teatro Banda - La Araucana
Psst! Secrets of a White Rabbit
The Best of Birmingham European Festival
 

 

The Barbican Centre is the largest multi-purpose, cross-genre performing arts centre of its kind in Europe and one of London's cultural heavyweight venues. In this article you can find out the highlights of the Barbican's autumn 2014 programme.

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Classical Music: Joyce DiDonato & Mariinsky Opera

The spotlight is on Joyce DiDonato, and the Mariinsky Opera comes for a three-nights residency.

 

The Barbican's Classical Music division puts the Artist Spotlight on Joyce DiDonato, one of the best-loved vocalists of our time who begins with a performance at Barbican Hall on Thursday 25th September 2014.

The second installment on Friday 10th October 2014 sees her perform a concert performance of Handel's opera Alcina with the English Concert under Harry Bicket, and the series continues into next year with three concerts in April 2015 culminating in the opening concert of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's Barbican 2015 residency on Friday 17th April 2015.

On 30th November, the BBC Symphony Orchestra will be performing 'The Sound of Chaplin' with music composed by Neil Brand, Timothy Brock and Charlie Chaplin to accompany three films Shoulder Arms, the short Kid Auto Races at Venice, Easy Street, and The Immigrant. Comedian and silent film fan Paul Merton introduces the film and hosts a Q and A with composer Neil Brand.

Also in November, a three-day residency by the Mariinsky Opera is one of the highlights for UK-Russia Year of Culture 2014. The theatre's conductor, Valery Gergiev, showcases two contrasting operas that both deal with archetypal aspects of Russian identity - Mussorgsky's Boris Gudunov (3rd November) and the UK premiere of Rodin Shchedrin's The Left Hander (4th November) - followed by the Mariinsky Chorus singing a programme of Russian Orthodox sacred choral music in Milton Court on Wednesday 5th November 2014.

 
 
 

Visual Art: Constructing Worlds & Walead Beshty

Photographic depictions of architecture come to the Barbican this autumn.

Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London, EC2Y 8DS

Tube: Barbican Station , Moorgate Station

 

Dates: 25th September - 11th January 2015

 

The Barbican's major autumn art exhibition, Constructing Worlds: Photography and Architecture in the Modern Age, runs from 25th September 2014 until 11th January 2015 and brings together eighteen exceptional photographers from the 1930s to the present day who have changed the way we view architecture and perceive the world around us. What better place than the iconic Barbican Centre with all its wonderful Brutalist architecture to host such an exhibition?

Over in The Curve, from 9th October 2014 until 8th February 2015, Los Angeles-based artist Walead Beshty transforms the space by covering the curved wall of the gallery from floor to ceiling with more than 12,000 cyanotype prints. The 90-metre long work is presented in chronological order allowing it to be read as a visual year-long diary.

 
 
 

Contemporary Music: Nils Frahm & London Jazz Festival

Jazz Festival is part of an autumn programme that also includes Nils Frahm.

 

The Barbican's contemporary music series for autumn 2014 includes an evening with the Berlin-based composer-pianist Nils Frahm on the 29th October 2014 following his new album release, Spaces. And there's more in the way of contemporary music with British Sea Power performing in the Barbcian Hall with London's Redbridge Brass Band on 25th October 2014.

Between 14th and 23rd November 2014 the EFG London Jazz Festival brings ten concerts and jazzy events to the Barbican from 'Jazz Voice Celebrating a Century of Song' featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater, Emma Smith, Georgie Fame and more (14th November) to a sold out tribute to Louis Armstrong with special guest Carleen Anderson (15th November). There are smaller events like the fun sing-a-long workshop held by Emma Smith on 16th November, and big occasions like the Bill Frisell concert on 16th November 2014, offering visitors a chance to see one of today's most original guitarists playing the electric sound of the Fender Telecaster in the 40s, 50s and 60s via the music of Charlie Christian, Duane Eddy, Chet Atkins, Chuck Berry and the Kinks.

 
 
 

Theatre: Shakespeare, CASA Latin American Theatre Festival & Best of BE Festival

Sir Antony Sher stars as the infamous comic knight Falstaff in Gregory Doran's Henry IV.

 

We may have to wait until summer 2015 to see Mr Cumberbatch as Hamlet but there's plenty to keep you entertained on the Barbican stage before then - especially if you're relishing the thought of Shakespeare.

From 12th to 15th November there a "joyful reworking" (Telegraph) of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream (As You Like It)' directed by Dmitry Krymov and in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Originally commissioned for the World Shakespeare Festival in 2012 it includes an opera singer, five metre tall puppets, ballerinas, and a performing dog.

Later in the autumn, the RSC returns to the Barbican with Gregory Doran's much-praised Stratford productions of 'Henry IV - Part I and Part II' with Sir Antony Sher as the infamous comic knight Falstaff, running in the Barbican Theatre from 29th November to 24th January 2015. There will undoubtedly be strong demand for this show, so early booking is advised.

The third production in the Barbican's Ibsen season is 'The Wild Duck' by Belvoir Sydney Company from Australia, playing in the Barbican Theatre from 23rd October to 1st November. Played at breakneck speed in a glass enclosure, the show lasts just 90 minutes.

The Best of Birmingham European Festival comes to The Pit for four days in October showing three prize-winning shows from the Festival including 'From the Waltz to the Mambo' by Hungary's Radioballet, Austrian Julia Schwarzbach's 'Loops and Breaks', and 'Waiting' by the award-winning Mokhallad Rasem from Belgium/Iraq.

Chile's leading itinerant touring theatre company, Tryo Teatro Banda, return to the Barbican from 14th to 16th October with the UK premiere of La Araucana, part of the annual CASA Latin American Theatre Festival. When they last appeared in the 2012 festival their irreverent style ensured it was a sell-out success. Expect more of the same.

There's theatre for the very young with 'Psst! Secrets of a White Rabbit', an enchanting blend of physical theatre, puppetry and gentle humour for everyone aged 2 upwards. It runs during October half term from 28th October to 4th November in the Pit, presented by Florshutz and Dohnert.

The Guildhall School opened its new building Milton Court in September 2013 and, just over one year on, there's an evening of World War One poetry read by Guildhall acting alumni including Dominic West, Freddie Fox and Christian Burgess on 10th November, just one of the many London events being staged to mark the centenary of the First World War.

 
 
 
 
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