We celebrate Mike Westbrook’s 85th birthday year by bringing back to the concert hall what the Independent on Sunday called ‘perhaps the greatest work in all British jazz’: The Westbrook Blake, Mike Westbrook’s settings of the poetry of William Blake.

The Westbrook Blake (also known in different versions as Glad Day and Bright As Fire) is one of Mike Westbrook’s most joyous and powerful works. This concert features the two original singers, Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton, and Mike Westbrook leads his own band with a choir directed by Paul Ayres.

Texts arranged by Adrian Mitchell and Kate Westbrook.

‘Mike Westbrook makes full use of his two striking vocalists, Kate Westbrook and Phil Minton. He finds music to match the ecstasy of I See Thy Form, the desolation of London Song, turns A Poison Tree into a blood‐curdling tango, and fashions a magnificent anthem for Let The Slave/The Price of Experience, Blake’s great paeans to freedom, dignity and compassion.’ (The Wire)

‘Mike Westbrook’s settings are among the greatest British music of the century – bold, optimistic and inspiring.’ (The Independent)

This concert is supported by The Airshaft Trust.