UK Jazz News

Jacob Collier, Chris Thile, Britten Sinfonia/Suzie Collier

Barbican Hall, 23 January 2025

Jacob Collier/ Chris Thile /Britten Sinfonia, cond. Suzie Collier. Photo: Shoël Stadlen / Britten Sinfonia

This was an other-worldly, out-of-the-ordinary evening. Remarkable, eclectic musicians and a wonderfully diverse programme from Bob Dylan to Bach and from Queen to Samuel Barber.

It was also a truly special family affair. It must have been a proud moment for conductor Suzie Collier to share the stage not only with JC, her very own prodigal son, but also Thomas Gould, the Britten Sinfonia’s leader/concertmaster, whom she has known since he was 12. Not to mention “Collier family crush” (as Suzie Collier put it) Chris Thile, who seems to be the very personification of charisma, clearly held in the highest regard by Jacob Collier who dubbed him “Earth’s finest mandolinist”. There were lots of hugs shared on the stage and a clear excitement and mutual respect between everyone who performed.

Suzie Collier’s conducting was hypnotizing to watch. It was like a dance in which she used her whole self to embody the music and communicate it with the orchestra, overseeing the evening’s performance with poise and a tender awareness for all of the musicians on stage.

‘Spring’ from Piazzolla/Desyanikov’s ‘Four Seasons of Buenos Aires’ featured an animated Thomas Gould on violin; the performance came across so authentically that the piece could have been written for him.

A much-awaited moment for many of us came when Chris Thile slid onto the scene in a sleek, blue suit followed by Jacob Collier who launched himself onto stage in a flash of multicoloured crocs. The applause to greet them had hardly settled when the jousting commenced in the form of an ecstatic, zigzagging improvisation between piano and mandolin. They seemed to playfully dodge and hit one another with a musical complexity on the verge of hilarity, evoking colours…as vivid as those on Jacob Collier’s trousers. Their prowess elicited involuntary responses from individuals in the audience, from the audible laughs and astonished whispers to the dropping of jaws and speechless gapes. When these prolific muso-magicians duel at top speed, there’s really only one question to ask: How do they do that?

It is not often that you hear an on-the-fly mashup arrangement of Bob Dylan and Lennon & McCartney in a concert hall, but that was only the beginning. Jacob Collier and Chris Thile brought an excitement, as if playing their favourite pop song, when they introduced JS Bach’s ‘Vivace from Concerto in D minor’, played on mandolin and voice, with Jacob Collier exhibiting a staggering vocal range.

The evening was also one of introductions, featuring two young musicians, Danushka Edirisinghe and Finn Anderson-Hendra who played an impressive rendition of ‘Violoncelles Vibrez’. The world premiere of Jacob Collier’s orchestral piece ‘Hush Scuffle’ encapsulates his childhood enthusiasm for music or, in his words “the part of me that wants to make a big noise and the part of me that’s not allowed to… but does it anyway”.

A musical highlight of the evening was in the tune ‘Lua’, from ‘Djesse Vol.2’ (2019). The orchestra basked in orange light as the distinguished bossa ballad transported the audience to a sunny land of cocktails and contentment. Jacob Collier’s piano solo over the sophisticatedly slow track offered a measured amount of light relief to the intensive evening.

Everyone going to a Jacob Collier concert should by now know that they need to warm up their voices beforehand, and tonight was no exception. He conducted the audience choir singing in harmony for a moving rendition of the traditional folk tune ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ (arr. Jules Buckley and Jacob Collier) and the last tune, Queen’s ‘Somebody To Love’, with orchestration by Giles Thornton. Collier even invited the audience to collectively sing Freddie Mercury’s iconic final riff to conclude the concert. It was a nice touch to include the enthusiastic audience as well as perhaps a subtle acknowledgement of the fact that this audience has more than its share of music fanatics.

It’s truly special that, although Jacob Collier creates some of the most complex music out there, attending a concert of his is the very opposite of exclusive. It is impossible not to be drawn in by the charming and enthusiastic young man spreading his passionate enthusiasm for music making.

Jacob Collier described his recent draw to orchestral music, accrediting it wholly to his mother. He describes some of his very earliest memories of her conducting, likening it to “casting a spell” which seemed apt, for it was in a slightly dazed state that, having heard all these magicians, the audience left the Barbican.

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