Always, Already There Curated by Elaine Mitchener
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- Classical Music | New Music
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- Booking required | In-person
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The first UK edition of George Lewis’s Afrodiasporic Incubator project, curated by vocalist, composer and Guildhall professor Elaine Mitchener, presented by the Barbican and Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
For the first time in the UK, through performances, talks and installations, we turn the spotlight on a rich, radical, diverse and resonant body of experimental music from composers who have been tightly policed as to which genres they could occupy, and excluded, both imaginatively and literally, from the contemporary music space.
Artists from the past and present will disrupt and expand the scope of this avant-garde arena, including pioneering figures such as Olly Wilson, Ahmed Essyad, Dorothy Rudd Moore, Alvin Singleton and Ben Patterson, as well as the leading lights of today: legendary vocalist Pamela Z, composers and electronic artists Hannah Kendall, Jessie Cox, Cedrik Fermont, Yara Mekawei, Corie Rose Soumah, Njabulo Phangula and Charles Uzor, alongside UK premieres by a host of gifted Afrodiasporic musicians.
Produced by the Barbican in partnership with Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
Always, Already There has received generous support from SHM Foundation, Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and Trevor Fenwick & Jane Hindley and additional support from Reece Ewing.
Barbican Classical Music Programme receives major support from Marcus Margulies and additional support In Memory of John Murray.
Line up
Going Beyond
Fri 23 Oct 2026, 7.30pm, St Giles
A mesmerising sequence of sung, played and communally-devised performances with music from Hannah Kendall to Alice Coltrane, marking the opening of the Always, Already There weekend.
Encounter an immersive sequence from Chiron Choir, leading solos from trumpeter Aaron Akugbo, harpist Chris Clarke, violist Laura M. B. Kumwenda and introducing flautist Lara Aisha Ali, and performances by members of the newly-formed Always Already There ensemble and the New Music Society from Guildhall School of Music, led by Anthony R. Green.
Get a sense of the incredible line-up of work from the weekend to come, with music by Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Lijadu Sisters, Michael Frazier, Anthony R Green, Alice Coltrane and Hannah Kendall.
Time Echoes
Sat 24 Oct 2026, 2.30pm, Silk Street Music Hall
An ear-opening celebration of the engagement by Afrodiasporic composers past and present with the interaction between live instrumental and electronic music, featuring four exciting soloists.
This concert invites us to listen and engage with works that exemplify Black radical tradition and ‘sounds (that) seek out a worlding between human and nonhuman entities through an endless capacity for reconfiguration, reorganization to materialize worlds outside the locked grooves of anti-Black violence and environmental destruction.’ (Henry Ivry)
Featuring leading clarinettist Heather Roche and cellist Elliott Bailey, flautist Lara Aisha Ali and Norwegian-based violist Laura M. B. Kumwenda performing five UK premieres of work by electronic music pioneers, from Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad and Olly Wilson (US) alongside works by Ivan Liuzzo, Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman, Pamela Z, Allison Loggins-Hull and Marcos Balter.
Black Art Notes
Sat 24 Oct 2026, 5pm, Silk St Music Hall
Leading improvisers and composer-performers are joined by students from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to perform graphic and open score work by Afrodiasporic composers.
This ground-breaking line-up includes scores by Corey Mwamba, Nyokabi Kariũki (Kenya), Njabulo Phungula (South Africa), veteran composer Wadada Leo Smith, Fay Victor with an ensemble led by UK legends Caius Williams, Mark Sanders and Xhosa Cole, joined by special guests including cult group Nurse With Wound collaborator Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman.
Always, Already There Ensemble and Pamela Z
Sat 24 Oct 2026, 8pm, Milton Court
Join us for a night of two halves: the Always, Already There Ensemble presents UK premieres by Charles Uzor, Corie-Rose Soumah and Marisse Cato, next to a solo set from electronic artist Pamela Z.
Jack Sheen conducts the newly-formed Always, Already There Ensemble in three UK premieres of work by Marisse Cato (UK), Charles Uzor (Switzerland) and Corie-Rose Soumah (Canada). Chris Clarke joins as soloist for Charles Uzor’s sumptuous new harp concerto Qualia, while Corie Rose Soumah’s Tossed Lilacs is inspired by small moments of wonder and spirituality, from the taste of clementines on the tongue to the strings of the Kora.
The evening culminates in a rare solo performance of works by legendary American vocal pioneer and electronic artist Pamela Z, famed for making works for voice, electronics, samples, gesture activated MIDI controllers, and video.
Apartment House: Not in Between
Sun 25 Oct 2026, 2.30pm, Silk St Music Hall
Pioneering group Apartment House present a programme of work by significant Afro-diasporic composers, covering over half a century of avant-garde and experimental music, for the first time in the UK.
Key fluxus artist Ben Patterson’s explosive take on modernist plink (and plonk) strafes through to Dorothy Rudd Moore’s eloquent music, meets Anthony Braxton’s visceral art sounds, is confronted by Alvin Singleton’s intense and haunting work and framed exquisitely by younger composers Allan Gilbert Ballon and Jessie Cox.
Words like Freedom: Gweneth Ann Rand and Allyson Devenish
Sun 25 Oct 2026, 4.30pm, Silk St Music Hall
Join us for a compendium of Black Art Song focused on the female voice, devised by leading soprano Gweneth Ann Rand and pianist Allyson Devenish.
This sequence includes Shawn Okpebholo’s settings of Langston Hughes, exploring themes of racial injustice, hope and humanity, and Jamaican composer Mikhail Johnson’s Praise to the Jamaican Mother of Art, which presents the First Mother as an enslaved African, whose art came out of unspeakable circumstances, unsigned, unknown, and expands this to comment on the exploitation of artists today.
Storytelling is a major element of Afrodiasporic heritage. As Allyson Devenish writes: ‘The title of the festival – Always, Already There – is the perfect jumping off point for our offering. We have been here, forever. We have always been telling stories, reflecting on our history, heritage, culture and being'.
building a burning house
Sun 25 Oct 2026, 7pm, Milton Court
The Always, Already There Ensemble are joined by three stellar singers at this celebratory concert marking the end of our Always, Already There weekend.
Bringing together new work by Hannah Kendall, George Lewis, Jessie Cox and Olly Wilson’s stirring, political and prophetic song cycle, Of Visions and Truth, join us to mark the end of Always, Already There.
The Always, Already There Ensemble are joined by three stellar singers, Tom Randle, Sarah Jane Lewis and Yannis François, to perform the UK premiere of Olly Wilson’s transcendent cycle, meditating on mortality and oppression. The concert also features the UK premiere of Hannah Kendall’s new work building a burning house and Jessie Cox’s subversive The Sound of Music, as well as a recent work by the founder of Always, Already There, George Lewis. Each work uniquely represents the richness and non-temporality of Afrodiasporic expression and lived experience, past, present and future – of visions and truth.
