Ambient pioneer takes to the road for the first time under his own name
Brian Eno has announced his first-ever solo live concert series, ‘Ships‘ which heads out onto the open seas in October. He has played live before, of course, with Roxy Music in the early 1970s and more recently with his brother Roger at the Acropolis in Athens. But these performances, with the appropriately named Baltic Sea Philharmonic orchestra is his first solo tour.
The concerts will be centred around Eno’s 2016 album ‘The Ship‘ alongside new and classic Eno compositions. The performance also features a cameo appearance from the actor Peter Serafinowicz as well as support from long-time collaborators, guitarist Leo Abrahams and programmer / keyboardist, Peter Chilvers.
The five-date voyage makes its final docking with two performances at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 30 October, 2023.
“The album ’The Ship’ is an unusual piece in that it uses voice but doesn’t particularly rely on the song form,” says Eno. “It’s an atmosphere with occasional characters drifting through it, characters lost in the vague space made by the music. There’s a sense of wartime in the background, and a sense of inevitability. There is also a sense of scale which suits an orchestra, and a sense of many people working together.
“I wanted an orchestra which played music the way I would like to play music: from the heart rather than just from the score. I wanted the players to be young and fresh and enthusiastic. When I first saw the Baltic Sea Philharmonic I found all that… and then noticed they were named after a sea. That sealed it!”
21 October, Venice, Venice Biennale Musica, Teatro la Fenice (3pm & 8pm)
24 October Berlin, Philharmonie Berlin
26 October, Paris, La Seine Musicale venue
28 October, Utrecht, TivoliVredenburg
30 October, London, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank (6.30 & 9pm)
For London tickets, visit southbankcentre.co.uk
