Today, Barbican launches its summer 2025 programme packed with events across its venues, public spaces, outdoors and even in its car park. The season includes Frequencies, a programme exploring the power of sound and sonic experience, Barbican’s iconic Outdoor Cinema, a series live music events and concerts including a Summer Jazz Series, two major shows kicking off the summer theatre season with multiple Olivier-Award winning Fiddler on the Roof, brand new exhibition Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha, and much more.
PROGRAMME
FREQUENCIES
Frequencies is a packed cross arts programme exploring the power of sound and sonic experience to shape how we move, think, feel and to inspire change. Featuring a packed programme of film screenings, concerts, events, workshops and talks, the season kicks off in May and explores how the power of sound moves more than just the body, and how it continues to inspire generations to rebel and create change.
The Frequencies programme includes:
Feel the Sound, Thu 22 May – Sun 31 Aug, Barbican’s bold new multi-sensory immersive exhibition exploring our relationship to sound and new ways to experience it through a series of installations including new commissions and UK premieres.
In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, Thu 22 May—Sun 3 Aug, the world premiere of a new version of the award-winning Virtual Reality experience – a nostalgic immersive adventure of finding an Acid House rave in 1989 that pushes the technology even further to create a truly collective experience, where friends share the same virtual space.
Rebel Radio, Sun 1—Mon 30 Jun, a month-long programme of broadcasts, talks, workshops, late night party and screenings celebrating London’s community and pirate radio story and exploring radio as a space for community, creativity, and subversion. Highlights of the programme include:
A month-long residency by Reprezent Radio, broadcasting live from a custom-built studio in the Barbican’s foyer. Special guests include legendary figures shaping UK music culture from DJ Spoony and Norman Jay to Daddy Ernie and Shabba D
Sharing memories through music in weekly co-curated communal listening events Sunday Selecta with DJ Bid (Reminisce)
Interactive Listening Posts in the Barbican foyer (available until 31 August)
An exclusive Club Night hosted by Rinse FM with older and newer generations going back-to-back
Talks programme curated by Tobi Kyeremateng from Them Ones Presents offering opportunities to hear from pioneers of pirate radio and contemporary thinkers on the legacy of the rebel community
Gaps in the Dial: a new, six-episode podcast by DJ Tayo Popoola about the history of Pirate and Community Radio, commissioned by the Barbican
A series of archive films exploring the rebellious world of pirate and community stations: Breaking the Silence: Pirate Radio, Black Media, and Voices of Resistance, Airwaves of Rebellion: Youth, Identity, and the Fight for Community Radio, plus a screening of Isaac Julien’s seminal Young Soul Rebels
Two-day audio storytelling masterclass, ‘Make Yourself Heard’
Live music events and concerts including:
Actress x Suzanne Ciani present Concrète Waves, Fri 30 May, a groundbreaking live music collaboration between two titans of avant-garde electronic music.
Moin, Sat 31 May, making their Barbican debut with music from their new album You Never End, as well as guest features and classics from their back catalogue.
A Warp Happening, Sat 14 Jun,a special day of music, screenings and performances led by the pioneering record label. The first Warp label-based event in over a decade will take place across the Barbican in an exclusive all-dayer, featuring Warp Vision: a feature length trip through the music video archives of the label, a host of Warp artists and culminating in a grand finale in the Barbican Hall. [AO1]
Rampage: Carnival Classics 2, Fri 20 Jun, joined by the 30-piece Nu Civilisation Orchestra returning to the Barbican to reimagine Carnival classics and celebrate over three decades of iconic tracks that define the sounds of Notting Hill Carnival.
Ligeti Quartet: Nuc, Sat 21 Jun, performing tracks from their 2023 album Nuc, fusing acoustic and electronic music for string quartet by Mercury-nominated composer Anna Meredith alongside visual projections.
Jeff Mills + London Symphony Orchestra: Blue Potential, Sat 28 Jun, making his much-awaited return with the Barbican’s Resident Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra for a very special evening marking the 20th anniversary of Blue Potential, Mills’ groundbreaking 2005 project and 2006 album combining electronic and symphonic music.
Cinema screenings including:
God Bless the Child. A Performance Lecture by Christopher Harris,
Tue 27 May, a performance by the filmmaker around his work in progress film, delving into themes of memory, history, and the materiality of film itself, challenging traditional storytelling with striking soundscapes and layered sonic textures.
Refugee Week: Haiyu (18) + ScreenTalk, Wed 18 June
Winner of the Sheffield Doc Fest Youth Jury Prize, Haiyu focusses on one of Western Sahara’s greatest singers, Mariem Hassan, whose life and music have given comfort and hope among the ongoing tragedy committed to the Sahrawis throughout the colonial era continuing up to this very day and has been used as a tool in the fight for independence in Africa’s last colony.
Good Vibrations: Barbican Emerging Film Curator Alumna Lillian Crawford curates two events exploring neurodivergent responses to sound and music within a cinema space:
Good Vibrations: The Sound of Neurodivergence: Eden + introduction by curator, Wed 2 Jul, Mia Hansen-Løve’s electronic music drama
Good Vibrations: The Sound of Neurodivergence: Shorts programme + ScreenTalk, Tue 8 Jul
Outdoor Cinema, Wed 20 Aug – Sun 31 Aug, returns this summer with a sparkling selection of films to watch under the city’s stars, in the Barbican Sculpture Court. The Frequencies line-up, with films notable for their inventive and immersive soundscapes, include Dune, Uncle Boonmee, The Return of Godzilla, Babymother, Beau Travail and Björk’s Cornucopia.
VISUAL ARTS
Encounters: Giacometti x Huma Bhabha, Thu 8 May— Sun 10 Aug
Inaugurating a new, intimate space within the Barbican, figurative sculptures from across Bhabha’s career are displayed alongside iconic works by Giacometti made mostly in the aftermath of World War II. Spanning nearly a century of artmaking and encompassing a range of media, this exhibition considers what occurs at the meeting point of works responding to the anguish and despair of a wounded world.
THEATRE & DANCE
Part of a three-year partnership between the Barbican and Trafalgar Theatre Productions:
Fiddler on the Roof, Sat 24 May—Sat 19 Jul, triumphant winner of three Olivier Awards for Best Musical Revival, Best Sound Design and Best Set Design Fiddler on the Roof transfers to the Barbican following a sold-out season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.
Good Night, Oscar, Thu 31 Jul—Sun 21 Sep, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Doug Wright, Good Night, Oscar is a dazzling, darkly funny drama about Oscar Levant; Hollywood actor, concert pianist and infamous wit. Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) who won a Tony Award for his performance, reprises his acclaimed Broadway role, reuniting with Ben Rappaport for the London premiere. Also starring Rosalie Craig (Company).
MUSIC
Khatia Buniatishvili & Friends, Thu 12 Jun, the finale to Khatia Buniatishvili’s Barbican residency, the pianist invites friends from the performing world to join her for an intimate evening of music and words.
Classical Pride 2025: Voices of Pride, Fri 27 Jun—Thu 10 Jul, returns for its third year, featuring Barbican Resident Orchestra the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Zeffman, and a world premiere by Jake Heggie commissioned by Classical Pride, alongside a line-up of star soloists, plus a free performance by emerging musicians in the Hall at 6pm on 4 July.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – Orchestral Qawwali with Abi Sampa, Sun 20 Jul, East meets West as The Orchestral Qawwali Project joins the CBSO, CBSO Chorus, and University of Birmingham Voices for a spellbinding performance.
Summer Jazz Series, Mon 16 Jun – Sat 26 Jul, running across June and July, the Summer Jazz Series features a selection of jazz artists including Tigran Hamasyan (Mon 16 Jun), Brad Mehldau Trio (Tue 24 Jun), and Take Me to the River All Stars (Sat 12 Jul). The series closes with a three-night residency from Herbie Hancock (Thu 24 – Sat 26 Jul), marking his 85th birthday.
CINEMA
Queer 70s: LGBTQ+ Cinema in the Decade after Stonewall, Wed 11 Jun—Wed 16 Jul, a season inviting audiences to travel back to the 1970s, when LGBTQ+ lives were shown on screen with an unapologetic gusto unthinkable a decade before.
Outdoor Cinema, Wed 20 Aug – Sun 31 Aug, returns this summer with a joyful programme of films to watch under the city stars, in the cinematic surroundings of the Barbican Sculpture court. Screenings include Love & Basketball, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Grave of the Fireflies, Fire of Love and Little Shop of Horrors.
BARBICAN ARCHITECTURE TOURS
Running daily, Barbican’s 90-minute Architecture Tours cover the vast, bold and brutal Barbican estate. Led by expert guides, the tour covers the Barbican Centre and surrounding Brutalist estate, exploring the site’s little-known nooks and crannies, venturing through highwalks, leafy courts and sweeping crescents, giving visitors an insight into the vision and ambition behind the complex’s design and its past, present and future.
Devyani Saltzman, Director of Arts & Participation at the Barbican, said: “This summer, we invite you to pause and attune your body, your memory and your senses. I hope our summer 2025 season – and our special programme Frequencies – opens new ways of sensing, feeling and thinking across disciplines and perspectives, and offer space for quiet reflection, collective energy, and radical possibility. Whether you’re here for a brief visit or for the whole day, I’m certain that your experience will echo with you long after you leave. So tune in, to sound, to feeling, to the frequencies that connect us all.”
