Sonia Boyce and Jacqui Dankworth

An overtime ban across the UK rail network is planned on the day of this performance, please allow extra time for your journey.

To coincide with Sonia Boyce’s Feeling Her Way installation at Leeds Art Gallery, this one-off event sees the artist in conversation with her collaborator and jazz vocalist Jacqui Dankworth, before a performance from Jacqui’s trio alongside the celebrated Carducci String Quartet. The conversation will be chaired by Dr Rommi Smith, the multi-award-winning poet, playwright, theatre-maker, performer, librettist and scholar.

Known primarily as a jazz vocalist, Dankworth’s skill in singing extends far beyond that, and so it is no surprise that she has asked the Carducci String Quartet, widely regarded for their Shostakovich interpretations, to join her for the evening. In fact, much of the set will be drawn from Dankworth’s 2022 album Rocking Horse Road, which features songs ranging from Kurt Weill to Bjork!

You can hear some of the outer reaches of her talents in Boyce’s Feeling Her Way, a multimedia work centred on vocal improvisations from her and four more Black female musicians including Errollyn Wallen and Poppy Ajudha.

This is a rare opportunity to explore the intersections between art and music; between classical, jazz and more.

Feeling Her Way is at Leeds Art Gallery from 26 May to 5 November 2023.

“…a joyous, tremulous performance for a chorus of Black female voices”
– The Guardian on Feeling Her Way

“Whose voice would you take with you to a desert island? Jacqui Dankworth would come close to the top of my list.”
– Gramophone Magazine on Jacqui Dankworth

“…athletic, upfront performances, clear in texture, forthright in tone and bold in articulation.”
– Gramophone Magazine on the Carducci String Quartet

In association with Leeds Art Gallery and LEEDS 2023.