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Zadie Smith is one of Britain’s most notable and influential living novelists. Her first work, White Teeth, completed while the author was still a student, became an instant hit when it was published in 2000. Soon enough, she came to define what it was to live in Britain – and particularly London – at the turn of the new millennium. Music has always coursed through Zadie Smith’s works. At university she worked as a jazz singer, while her 2016 novel Swing Time, long listed for the Booker Prize, explores her love of music and dance.
Zadie joins the Â鶹Éç Symphony Orchestra on the stage of the Barbican Hall for a highly acclaimed entertaining and thought-provoking evening. The multi-award-winning author reads extracts from a selection of her own writing - essays, short-stories, and novels - and even sings! Intermixed with music reflecting the readings by composers from Tchaikovsky to Gity Razaz.

Recorded at the Barbican on Friday 22nd April 2022

Music:

John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Dance of the Mirlitons – The Nutcracker - Act II
Harold Arlen (arr Simon Nathan): Stormy Weather
Adolphus Hailstork: Epitaph for a Man who Dreamed
Gity Razaz: Mother
Leonard Bernstein: Overture - Candide
Frank Zappa: Outrage at Valdez
Rogers & Hart (arr Simon Nathan): I Could Write a Book

Readings from:

Swing Time
NW
Contempt as a Virus
Joy
The Lazy River
White Teeth

Zadie Smith
Â鶹Éç Symphony Orchestra
Ben Gernon (conductor)