London’s Barbican Centre has posted a music schedule that will see audiences return to the venue for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic forced concert cancellations.
A concert series titled Live From The Barbican will run from October 4 until December 13, 2020 with a digital audience alongside a socially distanced live one. The full schedule can be viewed at the venue’s website.
As The Guardian reports, less than a sixth of the seats in the hall – which can in normal times accommodate just under 1,950 – will be available due to social distancing requirements. Around 300 tickets will be on sale for £20 each, and tickets to watch the live stream (or on-demand within a 48-hour window) will be £12.50.
Among the acts confirmed for the 12-concert series are Shabaka Hutchings performing with the Britten Sinfonia; Emmy The Great; The Divine Comedy, and a celebration of Pharoah Sanders.
The Barbican’s resident symphony orchestras will also return. The BBCSO give the world premiere of the chamber orchestra version of Magnus Lindberg’s Accused on November 6. In December, the orchestra and its principal guest conductor Dalia Stasevska are joined by physicist Professor Brian Cox to explore music and the cosmos.
Nicholas Kenyon, the Barbican’s managing director, said in a statement: “We’re delighted to expand our offer through the autumn, gradually opening up our venues and providing space for artists and communities to connect…online as well as in person.
“The autumn concerts have been designed and produced with both digital streaming and live audiences in mind and developed entirely in-house,” Humphreys added.
“This has made us more flexible and agile, and we hope to continue to use this technology in the future to bring our programming to wider audiences on and offline, nationally and internationally. Who knows what the future holds, but livestreaming will play an increasing role in concert presentations going forward.”