simeon walker & the magic lantern

Join us at the Brudenell for an imitate evening gathered around the piano, for a unique co-headline show featuring two gentle souls exploring the possibilities of emotion, storytelling and connection through music.

Prolific Leeds-based pianist & composer Simeon Walker has quickly emerged as a leading light in the burgeoning Modern Classical scene. Regularly featured across BBC Radio 3, BBC 6Music, Classic FM and KEXP, his music has been listened to in excess of 40 million times across platforms.

A frequent performer across the UK and Europe, his music and live performances reflect the extremes of human experience - at times, gentle, calm and still; powerful, boisterous and energetic at others.

Whilst his recent Imprints release features a set of piano miniatures representing everyday fleeting moments; brief snapshots in time, centred on conveying the range of emotions and feelings experienced during the lockdowns of recent years, his 2024 Autumn Tour highlights a range of music from across the first ten years of his career as solo artist, composer and performer.

Interwoven with insightful stories and wry self-deprecation, Simeon’s ‘sophisticated and elegant’ (Piano & Coffee), ‘beautifully captivating’ (Gold Flake Paint) introspective instrumentals invite listeners to find stillness, beauty and meaning as much in the spaces between the notes as the notes themselves. In a complicated, scrolling-fuelled, “always-on” modern world, his ‘sublime, assured and immersive compositions’ (Letting The Light In - Shrewsbury live music series) offer a moment of escape from the busyness of everyday life. 

The Magic Lantern is the moniker of singer-songwriter and composer Jamie Doe, an artist blurring the boundaries between folk, jazz and contemporary music. Born in Australia before moving to the UK at 12, The Magic Lantern has released four full length albums and toured the UK, Europe and Australia alongside This Is The Kit, Sam Lee and Alabaster Deplume among others.

His upcoming fifth album ’To Everything A Season’ was written and recorded in the months following his daughters birth and his fathers death six weeks later. In their brief meeting in a dementia nursing home, two ends of the circle of life touched. Of that cathartic moment, Jamie says 'I saw myself in my father, and my daughter in me and I felt joy and grief in overlapping waves, beautiful and complicated, which continue to ripple outward' These songs are my attempt to make sense of this incredible time - ‘A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted’

Performing an intimate solo set at the Brudenell, The Magic Lantern's live show captures a rare emotional immediacy through Jamie’s arresting vocal lyricism and piercing lyrics, crafting songs that examine the limitless depth of the human experience with devastating, joyous results.

As musicians, composers and artists dedicated both to their craft, and breaking down barriers between neatly defined genre categorisations, Simeon and Jamie invite you to join them for an engaging and thought-provoking evening, alongside the potential for an as yet unheard live collaboration.

Have a listen…