Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King at Wigmore Hall
Elaine Mitchener will become the first woman in the UK to perform Eight Songs for a Mad King on 26th May 2023
Author: pierre
VAN Magazine – 1 June 2023
A Chained Man’s Bruise
Madness and empire in “Eight Songs for a Mad King”
Benjamin Poore
“With one degree of separation, ‘Eight Songs’ records the sound of the injured and dying from a war between colonial powers. Mitchener’s version shows another vector of that violence: the foundational barbarity wreaked by empire on a different set of bodies.”
The New York Times – 24 May 2023
Madness, Royalty and the Music of Screams
Hugh Morris
“Me being onstage as a Black experimental contemporary music vocalist,” Mitchener said, “is in itself a political act.”
The Wire – May 2023
A Cry of Anguish: Eight Songs For A Mad King
David Grundy
“Eight Songs remains an intensely visceral piece with the capacity to shock. More than that, though, it prompts reflection on the treatment of mental health and the fraught legacies of empire, issues which are still very much with us.”
Field Notes – March 2023
“The Job Is to Make the Score Live.” Elaine Mitchener on On Being Human as Praxis
Kristoffer Patrick Cornils
“On Being Human as Praxis” was conceived by Elaine Mitchener. The vocal artist invited five different composers—Jason Yarde, Matana Roberts, Laure M. Hiendl, Tansy Davies, and George E. Lewis—to respond to the work of the Jamaican feminist and cultural theorist Sylvia Winter.
30 March 2026
[vc_row content_text_aligment="" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no"][vc_column][vc_column_text css=""] Cafe OTO - London 19:30 Mark Sanders / Elaine Mitchener / Rhodri Davies (trio) + Mark Sanders / Rhodri Davies (duo) Part of Marc Sanders - Three-Day Residency [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_text_aligment=""
14 March 2026
[vc_row content_text_aligment="" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no"][vc_column][vc_column_text css=""] Rich Mix - London 19:30 Graffiti Bodies XV by Dam Van Huynh in collaboration with Elaine Mitchener As part of Certain Blacks' Black Athena Festival 2026 [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row content_text_aligment="" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no"][vc_column][edgtf_button type="solid" size=""
5 March 2026
[vc_row content_text_aligment="" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no"][vc_column][vc_column_text css=""] Cafe OTO - London 19:30 Solo extended (Sakina Abdou & Mariam Rezaei) + Sakina Abdou / Elaine Mitchener / Neil Charles (trio) Part of Sakina Abdou - Two-Day Residency [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row