Classical and Jazz: Latest news > July 8
Published: 08 July 2010
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
THERE'S some intriguing multi-media breath-takers and electro-poperas at the Barbican over the next few weeks.
On Thursday, the centenary of Gypsy-jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt’s birth is being marked by an extraordinary multi-media work created by film-maker Tony Gatlif.
The concert will involve an exploration the Gypsy roots of his musical genius and his dazzling jazz achievements by violinist Didier Lockwood and guitarists Bireli Lagrene and Stochelo Rosenberg. Their renderings will be played against back-drop projections of hundreds of rarely seen Django photographs along with the few known pieces of moving film of the great virtuoso.
For concert details, see Listings.
On July 27 and 28, there is to be a performance of electro-popera Tomorrow, In a Year based on Charles Darwin and his book On the Origin of the Species. The opera was put together by The Knife, a Swedish electro-pop group, with striking visuals provided by Danish theatre company Hotel Pro Forma.
Artificial sounds are mixed with field recordings, music taking its inspiration from anything – a bird learning its melody or a song based on Darwin’s loving letters about his daughter. The composition is said to challenge the conventional conception of opera music, which may not be surprising as the composers admit they had never been to an opera and didn’t even know what the word “libretto” meant.
On July 30, Andy Warhol’s legendary “screen tests” and film portraits are being projected onto a big screen in the Barbican Theatre as the backdrop for live music from Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly members of the New York downtown band Luna.