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Barbican Announces Eclectic Transcender Line-up

| On 09, Sep 2013

uk-barbican-hallBarbican announces eclectic Transcender line-up, featuring Nynke, Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory, Matthew Herbert, Joshua Light Show, Nicolas Jaar, Faiz Ali Faiz, Carmen Linares, Chicuelo and more

Friday 4 – Sunday 6 October 2013

Barbican Hall & LSO St Luke’s

The Barbican’s acclaimed Transcender series returns for the fifth time this autumn with four concerts in the Barbican Hall and LSO St Luke’s, linked by the central theme of hypnotic, psychedelic and transcendental music. This year’s series includes artists from the Netherlands, UK, Germany, USA, Pakistan and Spain and features:

  • The UK premiere of the Joshua Light Show
  • Cutting edge electronica from Nicolas Jaar
  • Reinterpretations of Terry Riley’s In C by Pantha Du Prince and Matthew Herbert
  • A very special brand of Frisian Fado with Nynke  
  • Acclaimed qawwali singer Faiz Ali Faiz  collaborates with Carmen Linares on a brand new project
  • A FreeStage programme

Chris Sharp, Music Programmer at the Barbican, said: “Although this is the first time that minimalism has featured in this series, Terry Riley was exploring Transcender territory 50 years ago by creating music which draws on everything from the Indian classical tradition to the hypnotic loops of the San Franscisco Tape Music Centre. These new versions of In C should underline its timeless appeal and continuing influence. We’re delighted to present the amazing psychedelic projections of the Joshua Light Show, who will be here for two shows, lighting up the performances of In C and of Nicolas Jaar. Our other two shows dig deep into two Iberian traditions, exploring the gypsy roots of flamenco and the ongoing flowering of fado.” 

Nynke

Friday 4 October 2013 / 19:30, LSO St Luke’s

Tickets: £15

Dutch singer and lyricist Nynke Laverman brings her award-winning brand of Frisian Fado to Transcender this year. Her style combines intense Mediterranean sounds – from fado to flamenco – with the elegant poetry of the historically rich Frisian language. Spoken only in the northern part of the Netherlands it can be described as being halfway between Dutch and English. Nynke usually performs in sacred spaces and churches and her deeply poetic music vividly captures the spirit and sounds of her native landscape with its wide expanses, huge sky and overwhelming green.

Following on from her three albums which have all charted in the Netherlands, Nynke presents material from her latest release, Alter, produced with acclaimed Spanish guitarist/producer Javier Limón (Buika, Mariza, Yasmin Levy). The album explores themes of ritual, love and transformation and reflects Nynke’s own experiences of motherhood.

Produced by the Barbican

Further details here 

In C

with Pantha Du Prince & The Bell Laboratory, Matthew Herbert,

the Joshua Light Show

Friday 4 October 2013 / 20:00, Barbican Hall

Tickets: £17.50 – 22.50

Acknowledged by many as the father of minimalism and hypnotic repetition, Terry Riley gets a fitting celebration with two of today’s most innovative electronic artists re-interpreting and re-defining his most influential piece from 1964 – In C.

Berlin-based Pantha Du Prince (aka Hendrik Weber) will be performing his version of In C with Norwegian percussion ensemble The Bell Laboratory – following on from their recent collaborative Rough Trade release Elements of Light.

Matthew Herbert, especially known for his live-sampling, teams up with young music-collective stargaze (led by Andre de Ridder) and will record and sample the live-performed acoustical patterns of In C, electronically rework and then mix them with the instrumental sounds again. The different layers, interfering with each other, will have an even more intense effect in this homage to a timeless piece.

Following on from a specially-commissioned light show from psychedelic lighting pioneers Mystic Lights (for Sun Ra Arkestra’s appearance at Transcender in 2012), both reinterpretations of In C will be immersed in stunning psychedelic visuals created live by the legendary Joshua Light Show, who are making their UK debut as part of Transcender in 2013.

The masters of hallucinogenic lighting, whose structure differs little from the original of almost 45 years ago, were resident artists at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East during the late 1960s and performed at Woodstock, Newport Jazz Festival and other historic events of that era, producing the live and colourful projections behind great bands including The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and The Who.

Produced by the Barbican

Further details here

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Nicolas Jaar with the Joshua Light Show

Saturday 5 October 2013 / 20:00, Barbican Hall

Tickets: £17.50 – 22.50

One of the most cutting-edge young artists on the electronica music scene, Nicolas Jaar, will headline in the Barbican Hall on the second night of this year’s Transcender. Hailing from New York via Chile, he creates complex atmospheric music, melding abstracted beats with a deeply soulful sensibility. The plaintive, meditative nature of his music earned Nicolas Jaar Resident Advisor live act of the year in 2012. Sometimes described as ‘blue wave’ or ‘organic electronic’, Nicolas Jaar has defied easy categorisation whilst enthralling critics with his sparse, down tempo take on dance music.

At the age of 17 he made his debut on Wolf + Lamb records; now 23 years old Nicolas runs his own label, Clown & Sunset, on which he released his 2011 debut album Space Is Only Noise, which conquered global audiences and end-of-year charts alike.

The pioneers of the psychedelic experience, the Joshua Light Show, will also accompany this concert, creating what will be a very different set of visuals as they respond to the music performed on stage.

Produced by the Barbican in association with Fierce

Further details here

Sacred Sufi and Flamenco Songs

Sunday 6 October 2013 / 19:30, Barbican Hall

Tickets: £17.50 – 25

Faiz Ali Faiz and his ensemble qawwali vocals

Carmen Linares vocals

Chicuelo guitar

Tomás de Perrate vocals

David Lagos vocals

Isaac Vigueras percussion

Regarded as one of the pre-eminent qawwali singers, Pakistan’s Faiz Ali Faiz returns to the Barbican with a brand new production. Blending the volcanic power of Qawwali vocals with the hypnotic lyricism of Flamenco, this concert revisits the concept of the successful Qawwali Flamenco from 2006, further exploring the transcendental and nomadic gypsy music traditions that link the music of Pakistan and Spain.

For this new project, Faiz Ali Faiz collaborates – for the first time – with the exceptional and acclaimed cantaora Carmen Linares alongside Spanish guitarist Juan Gomez ‘Chicuelo’, who has accompanied and recorded with many of the best-known Flamenco singers and dancers, and an ensemble of musicians especially brought together for this occasion.

Produced by the Barbican

Further details here

Transcender for free

Free performances will kick off the weekend of transcendental music in the afternoon on Friday 4 October. Visit the Barbican website for updates on the FreeStage programme: www.barbican.org.uk/transcender