This October, the Barbican and the Guildhall School of Music & Drama throw open their doors to a new kind of listening—one that refuses the old gatekeeping, the old genre-policing, the old selective memory. From 23–25 October 2026, the two institutions will host Always, Already There, a festival celebrating experimental music by Afrodiasporic composers and musicians—and notably, it’s being positioned as the first UK festival dedicated specifically to avant-garde music by artists of African heritage.
Curated by acclaimed vocalist, movement artist and composer Elaine Mitchener MBE, the weekend reads like a statement: not a token slot, not a sidebar, not a “diversity moment,” but a full-bodied programme that insists this work has always existed—always been present—whether the establishment chose to hear it or not.
Across the three days, audiences can expect original performances from an exceptional line-up including Pamela Z (pictured), Pat Thomas, NikNak, Aaron Azunda Akugbo, Chiron Choir, Gweneth-Ann Rand, Thomas Randle, Apartment House, and the newly formed Always, Already There Ensemble. Further events—including free pre-concert talks—are set to be announced, extending the festival beyond performance into conversation, context, and community.
And the music itself? It stretches across generations and approaches, pulling pioneering figures into the same orbit as contemporary voices. Expect to encounter work connected to names such as Lijadu Sisters, Alice Coltrane, Olly Wilson and Anthony Braxton, alongside composers including Hannah Kendall, Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Charles Uzor. The point isn’t to flatten these artists into a single narrative—it’s to reveal the breadth: the radical range of sound, structure, and spirit that Afrodiasporic experimental music holds.
Through live performances, talks, and installations, Always, Already There turns the spotlight onto a body of work that is rich, resonant, and too often deliberately sidelined. Historically, composers of African heritage have been excluded from contemporary music spaces, while simultaneously being “allowed” only certain lanes—certain acceptable genres, certain palatable roles. This festival pushes back against that history with intention, not apology.
Importantly, the London edition is part of something larger: the festival grows out of composer and scholar George E. Lewis’s Afrodiasporic incubator, an international initiative launched in Berlin in 2024 to explore experimental work by Afrodiasporic composers—past and present—across borders, disciplines, and institutions.
Mitchener’s inaugural programme sets the tone for what’s being framed as an international platform: one dedicated not only to championing experimental music, but to fostering inclusion, exchange, and community. It also opens doors for the next generation—offering music students opportunities for side-by-side performances and collaborations with internationally renowned musicians, collapsing the distance between “training” and “real world” artistry.
Elaine Mitchener is uniquely placed to lead this charge. A renowned vocal artist, curator and educator, she has developed and presented Deep Time Festival (Basquiat & Cage 8424) at Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, curated Politics of the Voice for Courtisane Festival in Ghent, 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 five-star review.
For Mitchener, Always, Already There is not simply a festival—it’s an activation.
“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,” she says. “Blackness is not a monolith, and audiences will have an opportunity to hear a myriad of creative musical expression by composers of the diaspora.”
That’s the promise at the heart of the weekend: multiplicity. Not a single story, but many.
For further information, please visit the Barbican website.
Images provided courtesy of the Barbican
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