Press room

Today (3 June) the Barbican and Associate Producer Serious announce the second wave of EFG London Jazz Festival performances for this year’s festival. Today’s new performances invite audiences into an immersive reimagining of literary giant Haruki Murakami’s historic Tokyo jazz club ‘Peter Cat’ with a host of iconic Japanese jazz ensembles. Explorations of the sounds of Japanese jazz continue with a performance from genre-defying saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu, plus Estonian singer and violinist Maarja Nuut, who joins forces with Shards and Nicholas Stocker. Furthermore, saxophonist, rapper and composer Soweto Kinch revisits the trilogy of works he has created with Barbican Resident Orchestra the London Symphony Orchestra. 

Now in its 34th year, the annual jazz festival returns to the Barbican from Friday 13 – Sunday 22 November 2026 with ten days of headline concerts and bold new commissions alongside the festival’s city-wide presence in venues big and small across the capital. Taking over 60+ venues across London, musicians from all over the world will come together to perform boundary-pushing music that showcases jazz, its influence across genres and cultures, and ability to transcend borders and blend musical traditions.

The full festival line-up at the Barbican Hall and Milton Court Concert Hall as well as the longstanding free-to-attend FreeStage performances in the Barbican’s Level G foyers will continue to be announced in future waves.

Barbican EFG London Jazz Festival Line-Up to date:

• John Coltrane 100, Fri 13 Nov, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm
• NEW - Yasuaki Shimizu (Sun 15 Nov 2026, 7.30pm, Milton Court Concert Hall)
• Anouar Brahem: After the Last Sky, Sun 15 Nov, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm
• NEW - Maarja Nuut + Shards 'Combing Hair Into Sand' (Tue 17 Nov 2026, 7.30pm, Milton Court Concert Hall)
• London Symphony Orchestra/Soweto Kinch (Thurs 19 Nov 2026, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm)
• NEW - Haruki Murakami’s Jazz at Peter Cat: a Japanese Jazz Night (Sat 21 Nov 2026, 7.30pm, Barbican Hall)

Full details for Wave 2 Barbican performances follow below. As more performances and details are announced in later waves, all EFG London Jazz Festival 2026 events at the Barbican can be found here.

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Yasuaki Shimizu

Part of EFG London Jazz Festival

Maverick saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu brings his genre-defying sound to the EFG London Jazz Festival following a sold-out North American tour.

Saxophonist, but also composer and producer Yasuaki Shimizu has spent nearly 50 years moving between genres and disciplines with tireless invention. A major figure in Japanese music, he is known for chart-crossing pop, film scores, large-scale commissions and collaborations with artists including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, Van Dyke Parks and David Cunningham.

In recent years, Western audiences have rediscovered Shimizu through acclaimed reissues of his 1982 solo album Kakashi and Mariah’s 1983 record Utakata No Hibi. Blending Japanese folk with electronic and disco, the records sound remarkably current decades on.

This brand-new live show, presented in duo with his sister Mieko Shimizu, sees Yasuaki Shimizu perform new arrangements of a range of material from across his storied repertoire.

Produced by the Barbican

Find out more

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Maarja Nuut + Shards 'Combing Hair Into Sand'

Part of EFG London Jazz Festival

A new work by Estonian singer and violinist Maarja Nuut receives its premiere at the EFG London Jazz Festival in 2026, where she will be joined by Shards and Nicolas Stocker combining voice, percussion and electronics into a shifting world of song, memory and sound.

Maarja Nuut presents Liivast juukseid kammides (Combing Hair into Sand), a large-scale work for vocal ensemble, percussion, violin and electronics, created with British vocal collective Shards and Swiss drummer Nicolas Stocker.

Rooted in poetry by Estonian writers including Eha Lättemäe, the piece moves between song, spoken text and sound, exploring ideas of memory, time and inner reflection. Nuut’s music often draws together folk influences, experimental electronics and contemporary composition. Shards bring a distinctive choral approach shaped by improvisation and new music, while Stocker adds fluid, textured percussion shaped by jazz and experimental practice.

Together, the ensemble creates a shifting sound world where voices, rhythm and electronics continually transform.

Produced by the Barbican

Find out more

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Haruki Murakami’s ‘Jazz at Peter Cat’: a Japanese Jazz Night

Part of EFG London Jazz Festival 2026

Experience an immersive reimagining of literary icon Haruki Murakami’s historic Tokyo jazz club in a rare concert featuring performances from iconic Japanese jazz ensembles.

Music has always been at the core of Haruki Murakami’s literary work and life. As well as writing novels, Murakami also ran a jazz club in Tokyo from 1974 to 1981, named ‘Peter Cat’ after his own pet cat. Though the Tokyo club is long-since closed, this evening at the Barbican will take audiences back to the Japanese listening club to hear some of the reinterpreted classics that once helped form and inform Murakami’s literary universe. 

A special line up of musicians come together to take audiences on this journey. Junko Onishi Trio, Sachi Hayasaka / TReS and Yoshio Suzuki’s The Blend with Kosuke Mine, Keisuke Nakamura, Hakuei Kim, and Tamaya Honda will together visit different eras of American jazz, explore Japanese perceptions of these classics as well as presenting original compositions of their own.

Describing his writing style as “kind of a free improvisation”, Murakami has conjured up hundreds of moments inside his stories where music presents an enchanting soundtrack for setting the scene, hinting and defining character, and opening new doors of imagination. 

Please note: Haruki Murakami will not be appearing in the show in person but has graciously given his blessing for it to take place.

Presented by the Barbican in association with Serious. Produced by Serious. 

Find out more

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London Symphony Orchestra/Soweto Kinch 

Part of EFG London Jazz Festival 2026

The saxophonist, rapper and composer Soweto Kinch revisits the trilogy of works he has created with London Symphony Orchestra since 2019, with music from The Black Peril, White Juju and Soundtrack to the Apocalypse.  

Each work was inspired by a panoply of events, from commemorating the race riots of 1919 to the intensely fought culture wars in 2020 and lockdown, and the emergence of an apocalyptic, post-truth world. Covering Past, Present and Future they break beyond the boundaries of genre to explore these resonant themes. The layered storytelling, lyricism and musicality deliberately upends conventions – it's often-challenging messages are even more salient today.  

In Soweto’s words, ‘I’ve been on an intense journey, playing with and subverting tropes, gaining confidence in my own compositional voice but also discovering new approaches to storytelling with each commission.’ The results are this mix of cerebral and guttural, danceable creations – multi-platform works which should ‘assail the senses, but enrich the soul’.

Produced by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Part of the EFG London Jazz Festival. 

Find out more

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UPCOMING JAZZ AND MORE AT THE BARBICAN THIS YEAR:

• Panafrica in Rhythm Co-hosted by Moses Boyd & Jamz Supernova (Fri 12 June 2026, Barbican Hall, 7pm)
• Tyshawn Sorey & Pat Thomas: Project A Black Planet: A Season (Sat 20 Jun 2026, LSO St Luke’s, 6.00pm)
• Meshell Ndegeocello Project A Black Planet: A Season (Sat 20 Jun 2026, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm)
• Al Di Meola Summer jazz series (Thu 25 Jun 2026, Barbican Hall)
• Ben LaMar Gay’s We Chree: Project A Black Planet: A Season (Sat 27 Jun 2026, LSO St Luke’s 7.30pm)
• Pat Metheny Side-Eye III+ Summer jazz series (Sat 18 – Sun 19 July 2026, Barbican Hall)
• Perle Noire: Meditations for Joséphine Julia Bullock / Peter Sellars / Tyshawn Sorey (Tues 20 Oct 2026, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm)
• EFG London Jazz Fest - John Coltrane 100 (Fri 13 Nov 2026, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm)
• EFG London Jazz Fest – Anouar Brahem (Sun 15 Nov 2026, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm)
• Yasuaki Shimizu (Sun 15 Nov 2026, 7.30pm, Milton Court Concert Hall)
• Anouar Brahem: After the Last Sky, (Sun 15 Nov, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm)
• Maarja Nuut + Shards 'Combing Hair Into Sand' (Tue 17 Nov 2026, 7.30pm, Milton Court Concert Hall)
• London Symphony Orchestra/Soweto Kinch (Thurs 19 November 2026, Barbican Hall, 7.30pm)
• Haruki Murakami’s Jazz at Peter Cat: a Japanese Jazz Night (Sat 21 Nov 2026, 7.30pm, Barbican Hall)

• Billy Cobham Billy Cobham's Time Machine (Mon 23 Nov 2026, Barbican Hall)