Jazz breaking news: Jaga Jazzist And Britten Sinfonia Line Up For Super-sized Symphonic Barbican Concert

Performing at London’s Barbican hall on Saturday 16 June, the concert will be the conclusion of years of planning, and the culmination of bandleader/composer Lars Hornveth’s long held ambition of extending Jaga’s many, often-complex pieces with strings.

The band’s phenomenal live shows are breathtaking not just for the scale and scope of their compositions but also for each band member’s comprehensive musical abilities, as they all double or treble on different instruments. The bandleader himself moves effortlessly between the range of saxophones – from baritone to soprano, to clarinet, flute and onto both lap steel and regular guitar as well as keyboards. Lars, along with his brother Martin on drums and percussion, and sister Line who plays tuba, flute, percussion and sings, first formed the band in 1994 and it's since featured many of Norway’s emerging musical talents like wild guitar maverick Stian Westerhus. Among its current line up is fast rising star Mathias Eick who plays trumpet, double bassist and keyboards with Jaga but is also signed to ECM through which he’s released two acclaimed solo albums The Door and Scala. With so many instruments combining across a shifting sound world of prog, jazz, rock, drum and bass, ambient, classical and electronic textures – the band playing some 35-instrumenmts between them – there are few bands that can match the sheer breadth and reach of Jaga’s music.

While they’ve earned cult status for their early albums Jævla Jazzist Grete Stitz and A Living Room Hush, it was their 2010 breakthrough album One-Armed Bandit that saw Hornveth’s compositions hit a new peak, matching catchy hooks with wild stylistic gear changes. Thus the 35-piece extended band with the Britten Sinfonia will take things to the logical, maximalist next step of swelling the complex harmonic and rhythmic content of seven Jaga pieces to epic proportions. This collaboration is also part of ‘Conexions’ concert series that’s been curated by UK radio broadcaster Fiona Talkington and Oslo’s Nasjonal Jazzscene club, celebrating Anglo-Norwegian musical exchanges between the likes of Food, Spin Marvel and In The Country. Jaga and the Britten Sinfonia will make a return trip to Oslo’s large Rockefeller venue this September to perform this music once again as part of the Ultima Festival. But for now this London premier will be one to savour and quite possibly one of the gigs of the year. For more info www.barbican.org.uk

– Mike Flynn