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1 Barbican Events Nov 2017 barbican.org.uk News 2–14 Rome MMXVII 2–4 25th London Jazz Festival 5–7 Stockhausen: Stimmung & Cosmic Pulses 7–9 The Fairlop Oak 10–12 Oh so dangereuse... 12–14 Listings 15–58 Art 15–19 Film 20–29 Classical Music 29–41 Contemporary Music 41–47 Theatre & Dance 48–52 Learning 53–58 Information 58–72 Explore 58 Booking 60 Calendar 63–72 2 News Rome MMXVII Angus Jackson tells us about the Royal Shakespeare Company’s forthcoming season at the Barbican. What are your thoughts on bringing the Rome season to London? I am thrilled to be bringing the decadence of Shakespeare’s Rome to the Barbican. We are going to present these plays not in the order that they were written but in the order that the stories happen, beginning with Coriolanus – the tale of a semi-fictional character from 500BC – through to Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra, legendary characters who lived just before the birth of Christ. We end with Titus Andronicus, in which we see an entirely imagined Rome at the end of its dominance. In this order we track the ascendance and the decline of a civilisation: the establishment of a republic in the aftermath of the abolition of a monarchy, the republic becoming an empire and ultimately destroying itself. How does Coriolanus fit into the Rome season and your vision as a whole? Coriolanus was the last of the plays to be written and the last in the Stratford season. All four plays were designed by Robert Innes Hopkins and each set built on the one before: the Rome of Antony & Cleopatra is the Rome of Julius Caesar grown bigger, and in Titus Andronicus the same pillars are glassed in, to complement the modern 3 dress production. The myth of Coriolanus predates those three stories, but in our season Coriolanus is the next step forward in time, where the city has been levelled and built up again. History is cyclical. Presenting the plays together as a season will give audiences a rare chance to really see the ‘decline and fall’ of Rome in four very different dramatic narratives. Coriolanus is rarely performed. Why is a revival important in 2017? Coriolanus is the most rarely performed of all our Rome plays, but it is beautiful. It’s about class divide and about messy wars, and feels great in a ‘what if ...’ modern day production. The lead man, Coriolanus, is a complicated hero, not obviously likeable at the start. But we live in complicated times, where leaders shift in a way we don’t expect them to, and when, as in Coriolanus, the population votes for something that is far from in their best interests. There is some cross-gender casting in your production. Why did you decide to do this? Yes, the Tribunes in Rome are elected from the people to represent the people, whereas the other senators are born into privileged classes. Volumnia is a woman who has a lot of power without holding office, because of who she is. We thought, if you are going to elect someone to represent you right now it’s just as likely – if not more – likely to be a woman, so we have cast both Tribunes as women, catapulted into political life from their non-entitled backgrounds because they are the people’s choice, and set against generations of privilege. 4 What are your thoughts on Coriolanus as a character? Coriolanus as a character is more akin to a prize athlete or a rock star than what we might think of as a soldier. He’s a high-born, incredibly gifted individual who isn’t popular because he’s so proud. But then it’s as if he returns from the Olympics with twelve gold medals, becomes an overnight sensation and goes into politics. Rome MMXVII Royal Shakespeare Company Coriolanus 6–18 Nov 2017 Julius Caesar 24 Nov 2017–20 Jan 2018 Antony & Cleopatra 30 Nov 2017–20 Jan 2018 Titus Andronicus 7 Dec 2017–19 Jan 2018 See pages 50–52 for details 5 25th London Jazz Festival Ahead of its 25th birthday this year, the director of the EFG London Jazz Festival John Cumming takes us through the highlights. At the heart of the EFG London Jazz Festival programme are living jazz masters Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau and Herbie Hancock, familiar to Barbican audiences through many memorable concerts over the past two decades. All three present new projects, proving yet again that great jazz musicians harbour an appetite for new ideas, whether it’s Mehldau collaborating with mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, Metheny’s new band with pianist Gwilym Simcock, or Hancock’s thunderously, up-to-the-minute electric band. The interaction between different generations of jazz recurs throughout the programme, as does its global reach. The Cuban maestro Chucho Valdés celebrates the great tradition of his country’s piano music in duet with Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Pharoah Sanders evokes memories of his role in the music of both Alice and John Coltrane in a concert that celebrates the musical and spiritual legacies of two jazz icons. He is joined in a multi-faceted triple bill by saxophonist Denys Baptiste and harpist Alina Bzhezhinska, each of whom have found their creative impetus in recent years, and here demonstrate their own individual response to the Coltranes. 6 Taking Cuba as a starting point, the festival programme on 11 November makes a journey from west to east, reflecting on places where the jazz spirit has changed and been changed by cultures across the world. Valdés and Rubalcaba’s afternoon concert is followed by artists from today’s Turkish scene taking over the freestage. The evening concert sees tabla player Zakir Hussain explore how jazz impacted on Indian music from the 1930s onwards. He is joined by some of the musicians who were part of this story, as well as two jazz soloists rooted in the American traditions of the music: saxophonist Chris Potter and bassist Dave Holland. The freestage is where the surprise packages turn up from across the jazz planet. Joining the aforementioned Turkish artists, four groups from Estonia demonstrate the immense talent emerging from such a small country. There are also artists from France and Switzerland, and a ‘next generation’ afternoon suggesting that the future of British jazz is in promising hands. Once again, the spirit of the ancestors keeps recurring. An orchestral programme that includes a commissioned work from Terence Blanchard inspired by Herbie Hancock’s piano solos is partnered with the late Joe Zawinul’s Stories of the Danube, premiered here a decade after his untimely death. In contrast, Fado singer Carminho trains her haunting voice to the timeless songs of the late Antônio Carlos Jobim, in the company of members of the Jobim family. 7 It’s not just about the concert stage, though. The festival also includes a series of screenings, including a new documentary about John Coltrane; Roger Vadim’s controversial 1959 movie Les Liaisons Dangereuses, with a score from the wayward genius Thelonious Monk; and Julian Schnabel’s 1996 film based on the life of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat – the subject of a major Barbican retrospective this autumn – whose images of early jazz musicians act as the background to Blacktop’s improvisations, which in turn are accompanied by the words of poet Anthony Joseph. Festivals are there to celebrate, challenge and stimulate. The 25th edition of the London Jazz Festival is delighted to be working with the Barbican to realise this ambition. EFG London Jazz Festival 2017 10–18 Nov See pages 42–47 for details Stockhausen: Stimmung & Cosmic Pulses The Father of Electronic Music As the Barbican marks the tenth anniversary of Stockhausen’s death, Robert Worby looks at the life of a composer who created music of dazzling complexity, richness and depth. Karlheinz Stockhausen is a name familiar to many who are engaged with the arts. Lots of people have heard of him even if they have not heard his music. 8 His reputation extends far and wide and often it’s his reputation, rather than his work, that informs opinions. But there can be no doubt about his ability as a composer. He was one of the few who changed the very idea of what music is, especially after the Second World War. During this time, Western music was undergoing radical upheavals: the very idea of its nature and purpose was being redefined by the avant-garde in Europe and America. The notion that melody is a memorable musical line – something that might be sung by almost anyone – had been exhausted by many composers by the beginning of the 20th century, and it was completely disparaged by post-war composers who were inventing new ways of putting notes together. This era of musical evolution eventually led to a focus on sound, not just notes, being the essence and substance of music, and Stockhausen was at the forefront of these developments. Primarily using a technique known as serialism, which focuses on the characteristics of sounds – their pitch, noise, duration, dynamics, timbre, etc – Stockhausen created works of dazzling complexity, richness and depth. He was one of the first composers to use electronic sounds and the results of his discoveries in the studio had a profound impact on his music and, consequently, music in the late 20th century, from the classical world right through to pop, dance music and hip-hop; from Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Peter Maxwell-Davies to The Beatles, Björk and Aphex Twin. 9 The two works being performed at the Barbican on 20 November are fine examples of Stockhausen’s inventiveness and attention to detail.

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