Brighton Festival 2013: Musik Kabaret

Nina Hagen
Photo: Jim Rakete

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome… three words that instantly conjure the image of Berlin’s seedy underbelly. A world of bawdy entertainments, drinking and an atmosphere of steamy sexuality and raw creativity that became synonymous with Germany’s Weimar Republic.

This year the Brighton Festival says Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to Musik Kabarett – an exclusive event that sees Brighton Dome Concert Hall transform into a stylish cabaret-style venue straight out of 1920’s Germany.

Led by musical director and conductor Stephen Higgins, join three very different performers – Nina Hagen, David McAlmont, Jamie McDermott and The Irrepressibles – as they celebrate the counter-culture creativity and genre-defining performance styles that defined an era. Each artist boasts extremely strong – yet wildly different – vocal styles, and this dynamic evening of entertainment promises strong theatrics and powerful delivery.

Berlin-born performer Nina Hagen has been described by Rolling Stone as the ‘most intensely committed and flaked-out female pop visionary since Patti Smith herself’. She is a vocal force to be reckoned with. Daughter of actress Eva-Maria Hagenere, Nina was heavily influenced by her mother’s theatre work – taking classes in classical voice, guitar, and piano at just nine years old. Learning vocal technique from tapes of Tina Turner and Janis Joplin, she was soon exploring the London reggae and punk scenes. She formed the Nina Hagen Band in the 1970s and became renowned as “one of the hottest European bands since the Sex Pistols.” Going solo in the 1980s, Hagen’s anti-establishment stance won her a legion of fans and saw her move to America, where she dabbled with hard rock, funk and dance music and began to tour internationally. Eleven albums later, Hagen remains a politically articulate and powerful performer.

David McAlmont is best known for his musical collaborations – in particular the very popular McAlmont and Butler and his work with David Arnold. With his magnificent three and a half octave vocal range, a beautifully exotic and deeply individual voice, McAlmont has put his own indelible mark on songs from the likes of Cole Porter, Michael Masser, Sammy Fain, Paul Webster and Sonny Burke. The mere mention of his name gets the UK music lovers, from fellow artists, musicians and press reaching for the thesaurus in search of ever more extravagant superlatives.

Over the last eight years The Irrepressibles have carved a new frontier in pop with their influence seen on much of today’s music scene. Iconoclastically fusing classical orchestration, grunge rock, kitsch, exotica, electronica, sound art, jazz, samba, folk and much more into a heady and heavily emotional style of music that is created instinctively, playfully and cathartically by Jamie McDermott. The Irrepressibles are truly unique. Using conceptual sets, non-theatrical lighting, projection, dance, and couture fashion, the collective bring their music to life in what McDermott calls his ‘performance objects’ or ‘live spectacles’.

These have been commissioned for many of Europe’s leading festivals and institutions including Hackney Empire, BGWMC,and the V&A Museum, London and now we can see them here at the Brighton Festival.
Sat 25 May, 8.30pm, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome

Contemporary Music Highlights

by Latest 7’s Jeff Hemmings

Sinead O’Connor
The Irish high priestess of pop roared back to form with her recent album How About I Be Me (And You Be You)?, a work that touched many musical bases while exploring themes of love and loss, hope and regret, pain and redemption, anger and justice. Also drawing on a rich 25-year back catalogue, O’Connor will be backed by her six-piece band. Support comes the superb contemporary folk outfit Lau, fronted by Kris Drever.
Wednesday 8 May, 8pm, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome

Angelique Kidjo
Angélique Kpasseloko Hinto Housinou Kandja Manta Zogbin Kidjo (better known as Angelique Kidjo!) is a Grammy Award-winning Beninoise singer songwriter and activist. Embodying the spirit of Africa, Time magazine called her Africa’s premiere diva, and the Daily Telegraph says she is: “The undisputed queen of African music”. Expect a typically diverse musical and multi-lingual palette that incorporates jazz, gospel, Latin and various Africans strands. Support from Josephine Oniyama.
Sunday 12 May, 8pm, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome

Apparat plays Krieg und Frieden
The stage name for Sascha Ring, this German electronic musician is more interested in designing sounds than beats as heard on his breakthrough album of 2011, The Devil’s Walk, released on Mute. His new project Krieg & Friedan was created as a stage adaptation of Tolstoy’s War And Peace, and whose epic sweep encompasses every nuance of life and living. A distillation of Tolstoy’s masterpiece, Apparat conjures a euphoric melancholy that is both sophisticated and sensitive.
Monday 13 May, 9pm, All Saint’s Church

Sam Lee & Friends
After spending years searching the country for Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities and gathering the songs that have been passed down over many generations, Lee went into the studio and used them to form the basis of his acclaimed debut album Ground of Its Own, which was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize as well as winning fRoots album of the year. Challenging perceptions of what ‘traditional folk’ is, Sam Lee and friends bring to life these glorious songs.
Tuesday 14 May, 8pm, All Saints Church, Hove

The Flaming Lips
Wayne Coyne and band are one of the most acclaimed acts of recent years; their elaborate stage shows as much a part of their appeal as their multi-layer, psychedelic rock arrangements. New album The Terror sees them extending their innate pessimism, interspersed with glimmers of hopes and salvation. If we are going down, at least we’ll have a ball in the presence of this magnificent band.
Wednesday 22 May, 8.30pm, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome