Shabaka

Multi-instrumentalist Shabaka Hutchings took up the clarinet from age nine, playing in calypso bands while studying classical repertoire, and often practising over hip hop beats and music native to Barbados, where he spent much of his childhood. Since then he has collaborated on a range of projects, recording and touring with Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics, Soweto Kinch, Floating Points and Courtney Pine amongst many other bands, as well as being a part of the London Improvisers Orchestra. He’s also composed pieces for the BBC Concert Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Ligeti Quartet. Over the course of the past decade, most of his touring and recorded work has been with three bands: Sons of Kemet, The Comet Is Coming, and Shabaka and the Ancestors, which have seen him explore Afro-Caribbean fusions, London dance music club culture and South African jazz. Having put the saxophone down to devote his energies toward the flute, his first solo album Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace proves his incredible talent across more than just saxophone. Presented in partnership with AEG and Eat Your Own Ears