A 1000-year-long piece of music, Longplayer has been playing continuously since the first moments of this millennium and is composed to continue until the final moments of the next.
On 5th April 2025, in Longplayer’s 25th anniversary year, Longplayer returns to the Roundhouse for a performance of the 1000-minute section of its score, as written for that particular time and date, from 7.20am to midnight.
Longplayer’s duration means that, given the unknowability of the future, its score was written so as to be independent of any one technology. For most of its life it has been performed by computers, while its caretakers, the Longplayer Trust, explore alternatives which have included the use of the human voice, vinyl records, code, a beam of light and, as first heard at the Roundhouse in 2009, live performance by musicians.
Akin to what Longplayer’s composer, Jem Finer, calls a ‘vast, Bronze Age synthesiser’, Longplayer Live is performed on a large orchestral instrument comprised of 234 singing bowls, arranged in six concentric rings and played by shifts of six to twelve people at any one time, reading from a graphic score.
Longplayer hopes to enrich intergenerational conversations about how we can imagine the future. For this 25th anniversary performance, 18 young people from the Roundhouse’s creative community will join the orchestra of musicians and artists: a meeting of present and future custodians who will shape Longplayer’s next 25 years.
As part of the Longplayer Live programme, award-winning writer, director, and former Young People’s Laureate for London, Caleb Femi, presents Longplayer: Long Poem, an immersive 100-minute poetry event exploring time, inheritance, survival, and the unknown. Taking place on Saturday 5 April at 12pm and 2:30pm, Longplayer: Long Poem reflects on the past, present, and future within Longplayer’s 1,000-year continuum, weaving powerful storytelling and poetic expression.
Access to Longpoem is included in Longplayer Live tickets.
TICKETS: £25 standard ticket. £5 for under 30s. Head to ‘essential bookings and fees’ to purchase these discounted tickets.