Press room

The Barbican and Guildhall School of Music & Drama unveil details for Always, Already There – a new festival celebrating experimental music by Afrodiasporic composers and musicians, taking place across the Barbican and Guildhall School from 23-25 October 2026. Curated by acclaimed vocalist, movement artist and composer Elaine Mitchener MBE, the festival marks the first-ever UK event dedicated to avant-garde music by artists of African heritage. 

Bringing together an exceptional line-up of artists, the weekend will see original performances from the likes of Pamela Z, Pat Thomas, NikNak, Aaron Azunda Akugbo, Chiron Choir, Gweneth-Ann Rand, Thomas Randle, Apartment House, and the newly-formed Always, Already There Ensemble, with further events including free pre-concert talks to be announced. Audiences will encounter music by pioneering figures as well as contemporary voices, from Lijadu Sisters, Alice Coltrane, Olly Wilson and Anthony Braxton to Hannah Kendall, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Charles Uzor.

Through live performances, talks, installations, Always, Already There turns the spotlight on a rich, radical, diverse and resonant body of experimental music from composers who have, historically, been excluded from the contemporary music space and tightly policed as to the genres they could occupy. The festival is the London edition of composer and scholar George E. Lewis's Afrodiasporic incubator - an international initiative launched in Berlin in 2024 to explore the experimental work of Afrodiasporic composers, both past and present.

Elaine Mitchener masterminds this inaugural programme for 2026, setting the tone for an international platform dedicated to championing experimental music and fostering community, inclusion and exchange, as well as offering music students opportunities for side-by-side performances and collaborations with internationally renowned musicians. A renowned vocal artist, curator and educator, Elaine previously developed and presented Deep Time Festival (Basquiat & Cage 8424) at Edinburgh's Fruitmarket Gallery, Politics of the Voice for Courtisane Festival in Ghent, Belgium, and recently programmed Are ‘Friends’ Electric? as a Wigmore Hall Associate Artist earning praise from The Guardian as a "virtuoso tour-de-force" in a 5* review.

Elaine Mitchener, Always, Already There curator, says:

“Always, Already There is a joyful and positive activation against a persistent ‘tone deafness’ within the establishment world of western classical music, which has long ignored the work of Afrodiasporic New Music Composers. Blackness is not a monolith, and audiences will have an opportunity to hear a myriad of creative musical expression by composers of the diaspora.”

Helen Wallace, Barbican Head of Music, says: 

“We're passionate about presenting this weekend at the Barbican as part of our ongoing exploration of Afrodiasporic cultures. Always, Already There offers a radical alternative to the white avant garde, driven by a communal practice, a dynamic exchange between performers and creators, spiritual depth and political courage. The fact that we have created a new diverse ensemble for this work is testament to what has been lacking for too long. Who better to lead the gathering than Elaine Mitchener, a singular game-changing artist who brings together the worlds of Café Oto, Venice Biennale and Darmstadt.”

The festival opens on Friday 23 October with Going Beyond, a programme combining sung, instrumental and collaboratively devised performances. On Saturday 24 October, Time Echoes explores the relationship between live performance and electronics, followed by Black Art Notes, bringing together leading improvisers, composer-performers and Guildhall School students and alumni. The evening concludes with The Ensemble and Pamela Z, featuring UK premieres by Charles Uzor, Corie-Rose Soumah and Marisse Cato, alongside a solo performance by the pioneering electronic artist Pamela Z. The evening also features turntablist and composer NikNak’s late night performance of their imagined conversation between John Cage and Jean Basquiat. 

The final day includes Apartment House's exploration of more than fifty years of Afrodiasporic experimental music in Not In Between, as well as Words Like Freedom, a celebration of Black Art Song devised by soprano Gweneth Ann Rand and pianist Allyson Devenish. The festival culminates with Building a Burning House, a closing concert with a UK premiere of Hannah Kendall’s work of the same name, alongside other UK premieres of works by Jessie Cox, George E Lewis and Olly Wilson’s ‘Of Visions and Truth’, bringing together performers from across the weekend.

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More details about each of the events in the Always, Already There weekend can be found below:

Going Beyond

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. 

Music by Ben Patterson, Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Lijadu Sisters, Michael Frazier, Anthony R Green, Alice Coltrane, Marcos Balter and Hannah Kendall.

Produced by the Barbican in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Find out more

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.

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Time Echoes

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.

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 and Allison Loggins-Hull.

Produced by the Barbican in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Find out more

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.

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Black Art Notes

Leading improvisers and composer-performers are joined by students from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama to perform graphic and open score work by Afrodiasporic composers.

This ground-breaking line-up includes scores by Fay Victor (US), Pat Thomas and Corey Mwamba, with a UK/European ensemble led by Xhosa Cole (musical director), joined by special guests including cult group Nurse With Wound collaborator Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman.

Produced by the Barbican in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama

Find out more

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.

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Always, Already There Ensemble and 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.

Produced by the Barbican in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama 

Find out more

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.

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Apartment House: Not in Between

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 Balon and Jessie Cox.

Produced by the Barbican in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama 

Find out more

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.

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Worlds Like Freedom

Always, Already There presents 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.

Produced by the Barbican in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama 

Find out more

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.

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building a burning house

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.

Produced by the Barbican in partnership with the Guildhall School of Music & Drama 

Find out more

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.